
Class. 

Book 'W55 1- 

Gopyri^Ml^?- 

COPyRIGHT DEPOam 



2M. 



IN OLD 

PENNSYLVANIA 

TOWNS 



By Anne Hollingsworth Wharton 

A Rose of Old Quebec. With eight illus- 
trations. Decorated cloth. 

In Chateau Land. 25 full-page illustra- 
tions in duotone. Large 12mo. Deco- 
rated cloth, gilt top. 

An English Honeymoon. Decorated 
title and 17 illustrations. Cloth, extra. 

Italian Days and Ways. Decorated title 
and 8 illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, extra. 

English Ancestral Homes of Noted 
Americans. With 29 illustrations. Dec- 
orated cloth. 

Social Life in the Early Repthblic. 
Profusely illustrated. 8vo. Buckram. 

Salons, Colonial and Republican. 
Profusely illustrated. Svo. Buckram. 

Heirlooms in Miniatures. Pjofusely 
illustrated. Svo. Buckram. 

Through Colonial Doorways. Illus- 
trated. 12mo. Cloth. 

Colonial Days and Dames. Illustrated. 
12mo. Cloth. 

A Last Century Maid. Illustrated. Svo. 
Cloth. 



IN OLD 
PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 



BY 



ANNE HOLLINGSWORTH WHARTON 



WITH 39 ILLUSTRATIONS 



PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

1920 






COPYRIGHT, 1920. BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 



PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS 

PHILADELPHIA, U, S. A. 



i^^C 23 1920 
g)C!,A604667 



TO THE MEMORY OF 
KATHARINE AUSTIN DERBYSfflRE 

IN WHOSE GOOD COMPANY I TOURED TO 
SOME OF THESE OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



So many citizens of old Pennsylvania towns 
have aided the writer in her researches that 
their names would fill many pages ; she wishes, 
however, to make particular mention of the aid 
given her by such historians of Lancaster as 
Miss Martha Bladen Clark and the Honorable 
C. I. Landis ; by Mr. Henry W. Shoemaker, that 
indefatigable Pennsylvania chronicler; by Dr. 
Thomas Lynch Montgomery, State Librarian at 
Harrisburg; by Judge and Mrs. Edward W. 
Biddle and Miss Emmeline K. Parker, of Car- 
lisle ; by the Honorable John Stewart, of Cham- 
bersburg, and Mr. George H. Stewart, of Ship- 
pensburg; by Miss Anna Valentine and Mrs. 
Harry Valentine, of Belief onte; by George R. 
Bedford, Esq., and Mr. Christopher Wren, of 
Wilkes-Barre ; by Baird Halberstadt, Esq., of 
Pottsville; by Mr. Oliver Ormsby Page and Mr. 
Sumner B. Ely, of Pittsburgh; by Miss Louise 
de Schweinitz, of Bethlehem; by General H. C. 
Trexler and Mr. Charles R. Roberts, of Allen- 
town; by Mr. John P. Lyons, of Montrose, and 
last, but by no means least, by Governor William 
C. Sproul, of Lapidea, near Chester. 

The author also wishes to make her acknowl- 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



edgments to such officers and members of the 
Historical Society of Pemisylvania as Dr. John 
W. Jordan, Dr. Gregory B. Keen, Colonel J. 
Granville Leach, the Honorable Hampton L. 
Carson, Mrs. James M. Longacre, and Gilbert 
Cope, whose researches and publications have 
added much to the value of her work. 

For the use of photographs of some beautiful 
old homes in Carlisle, the author extends her 
thanks to the editors of ' ' Carlisle Old and New. ' ' 

A. H. W. 



CONTENTS 



I. 

INTRODUCTION 11 

II. 

EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 19 

III. 

THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 44 

IV. 

LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 74 

V. 

GETTYSBURG BY WAY OF COLUMBIA AND YORK 99 

VI. 

CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPEN8BURG 119 

VII. 

A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 143 

VIII. 

FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 169 

IX. 

WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 191 

X. 

WASHINGTON, PENNA., AND THE BRADDOCK TRAIL 212 

XI. 
FORT BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG AND JENNY LIND 230 

XII. 

THE CITY OF THE BEAUTIFUL SPRING 248 

XIII. 

UP THE SUSQUEHANNA TO SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARR^ 260 

T 



CONTENTS 



XIV. 

A PENNSYLVANIA RETREAT FOR ROYALTY 283 

XV. 

DOWN THE SCHUYLKILL TO POTTSVILLE AND READING 300 

XVI. 

ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 313 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



HOMEWOOD, NEAR PITTSBURGH, ONCE THE HOME OF JUDGE 

WILLIAM wiLKiNS Frontispiece 

THE OLDEST HOUSE IN DOWNINGTOWN 34 

THE COATES-LUKENS-HUSTON HOUSE, COATESVILLE 38 

WINDSOR FORGES, CAERNARVON TOWNSHIP 40 

HOUSE OF CHRISTOPHER MARSHALL, LANCASTER 48 

HOUSE OF CALEB COPE, LANCASTER, WHERE ANDRE LODGED 52 

THE brethren's CHURCH AND PARSONAGE, LANCASTER 54 

HOUSE OF EDWARD 8HIPPEN OF LANCASTER 54 

MINIATURES OF MR. AND MRS. JOHN WILKES KITTERA 76 

FROM MINIATURES BY ROBERT FULTON 

ENTRANCE TO MOUNT HOPE MANSION, COUNTRY HOME OF THE 

GRUBB FAMILY FOR OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS 92 

HOME OF ROBERT COLEMAN AT ELIZABETH FURNACE 94 

ABBEYVILLE, old HOME OF HON. Lu^NGDON CHEVES 102 

HEMPFIELD, WRIGHT HOUSE, COLUMBIA 106 

FALLING SPRING CHURCH, CHAMBERSBURG 120 

THE MCLELLAND HOUSE, CHAMBERSBURG 124 

DOORWAY OF HOUSE OF DAVID WATTS, ON HANOVER STREET, 

CARLISLE 156 

MANSION OF ISAAC BROWN PARKER, HIGH STREET, CARLISLE. . . 158 

HALDEMAN-CAMERON HOUSE, FRONT STREET, HARRISBURG 174 

OLD HOUSE OF HON. WILLIAM MACLAY, FRONT STREET, HARRISBURG 176 

FORMER HOME OF BENJAMIN PAGE, ALLEGHENY 200 

FRIENDSHIP HILL, FORMER HOME OF HON. ALBERT GALLATIN, 

NEAR UNIONTOWN 222 

BEN LOMOND, BUILT 1785 BY HENRY BEE30N, FOUNDER OP 

UNIONTOWN 222 

THE 8EARIGHT HOUSE, BUILT BY JOSIAH FROST, PRIOR TO 1821 . . 224 

9 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



CROCKFORD, BACHELORS' QUARTERS, BEDFORD SPRINGS 236 

BURNHAM, BUILT IN 1811, ENLARGED BY REUBEN BOND VALEN- 
TINE IN 1857 250 

THE LINN HOUSE, BUILT IN 1810, STILL RESIDENCE OF LINN 

FAMILY 250 

DONNEL HOUSE ON MARKET SQUARE, SUNBURY, OCCUPIED BY 

DONNEL FAMILY OVER 120 YEARS 260 

POBMEB HOME OF REV. JOSEPH PRIESTLY, NORTHUMBERLAND. . . . 264 

THE PICKERING-ROSS HOUSE, SOUTH MAIN STREET, WILKE3-BARRE 278 

HOME OF COLONEL ZEBULON BUTLER, WILKES-BARRE 278 

THE MULFORD-LYONS HOUSE, MONTROSE 292 

TROUT HALL, ALLENTOWN, BUILT BY JAMES ALLEN, IN 1770. . . . 310 

SCHNITZ HOUSE, BETHLEHEM, NOW HEADQUARTERS OF RED CROSS 318 
" BELL HOUSE " BUILT IN 1746, NOW SINGLE SISTERS HOUSE, 

BETHLEHEM '. 322 

EASTER MORNING IN BETHLEHEM GRAVEYARD 322 

THE LLOYD HOUSE, CHESTER, PA 334 

LAPIDEA COTTAGE, BUILT 1727, NOW ON ESTATE OF GOVERNOR 

WILLIAM C. SPROUL 334 

COURT HOUSE, CHESTER, BUILT 1724, RESTORED 1920 340 



IN OLD 
PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

I 
INTRODUCTION 

Feom the days of Oliver Goldsmith and 
Mary Eussell Mitford to our own time, the vil- 
lage and small town have held a lure for poet, 
romance writer and chronicler. 

"There is," says Miss Julia Patton, who 
writes with enthusiasm of the English village, 
* ' something close, intimate and endearing in the 
village idea"; and Mrs. Edward C. Clarke gives 
a charming picture of village life in America in 
the chronicles of her girlhood's home in Canan- 
daigua, New York. 

Few among us, even the most inveterate 
Cockney, can remain long insensible to the charm 
of an English village, to which the passing cen- 
turies have added a grace that only time can be- 
stow, and some of our old American villages 
and towns, especially those which have been 
remote from the broad highways of travel, still 
possess much of the fascination of the English 
village. On this side of the water, however, vil- 
li 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

lages and small towns have a fashion of growing 
into large towns and great cities ; yet, in many of 
them, when we get away from main thorough- 
fares and central squares, with their trolleys, 
noisy activities and bustle, we still find quiet 
streets, ''soft embowered in trees," and old 
houses with the lovely porticoes and doorways 
that belonged to the village of the past. 

Many of the old Pennsylvania towns treated 
of in this book may no longer be spoken of as 
towns, as they have outgrown such limits and 
become large and prosperous cities, as Chester, 
Lancaster, Eeading, Harrisburg and Wilkes- 
Barre. But most of these, despite their size and 
importance, retain something of their village 
charm. In Bethlehem, with all its business ac- 
tivity and prosperity, the old Moravian settle- 
ment still holds the stage, its picturesque 
buildings being in the center of the town, and 
when there is a Bach festival it is to this older 
section that the visitor turns his footsteps. In 
Belief onte, we leave a wide street, full of hand- 
some, modem residences, climb a steep hillside, 
and are in the old town, where an early Valen- 
tine settler built a Friends' Meeting House, 
which with its moss-grown roof, its stones tinted 
by the fingers of time into indescribably lovely 
shades, is as picturesque on its hilltop as is Jor- 
dan 's Meeting in its fair English valley. 

Now that good roads in many parts of Penn- 

12 



INTRODUCTION 



sylvania and broad highways, the William Penn, 
the Lincoln and the National Highway, offer 
facilities for reaching our old towns, some in- 
teresting associations belonging to their history, 
early and late, may be of interest to the tourist. 
To gather together some record of these associa- 
tions, while those still living are able to recall 
stories, handed down from father to son, of the 
days when many of these towns were frontier 
forts, has been the object of the writer, as well 
as to record the recollections of later and event- 
ful days just before and soon after the Civil 
War, while older citizens recall President 
Buchanan when he was living at Wheatland, 
near Lancaster; or tell you of President Lin- 
coln's visits to Lancaster and Harrisburg in 
February, 1861 ; or describe the handsome face 
and figure of Andrew G. Curtin, as he walked 
through the streets of Bellefonte, before he be- 
came the noted War Governor of Pennsylvania. 
Such recollections as these, from eye witnesses, 
bridge over the years and bring back to us the 
events of the past with a fresh and vivid interest. 
In presenting to her readers the stories of 
some old Pennsylvania towns, the writer wishes 
it to be understood that many, both old and 
interesting, have not been given a place in this 
book simply on account of the limitations of time 
and space. A comprehensive review of the his- 
toric towns of a state in which so much history 

13 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

has been made would fill many volumes and 
would require the research of a lifetime. Only 
those known to the writer, which have left their 
impress upon her mind, have been included in 
these pages. 

Philadelphia and Germantown have been 
treated of by so many able writers that they have 
been purposely omitted in the preparation of 
this book. 

We know our Southern and New England 
towns and the charm of them ; we love them as 
a valued share in the life of a great nation; it 
has been the good fortune of many of these to be, 

Stmg in song, rehearsed in story. 

For some reason the history and romances of 
our old Pennsylvania towns have not, to any 
considerable extent, occupied a place in general 
literature, with the exception, of course, of 
Philadelphia, and yet no state is richer in his- 
toric associations than the old Keystone. 

The ignorance of otherwise intelligent per- 
sons with regard to the past events and present 
attainments of Pennsylvania has of late years 
been impressed upon the writer. As, for in- 
stance, in talking to an ordinarily intelligent and 
traveled young person from Boston, when some 
pictures were shown her of Colonial houses still 
standing in some of the southern Pennsylvania 
towns, she said, ''Dutch Colonial, I suppose." 

14 



INTRODUCTION 



' ' No, English Colonial, ' ' was the answer. 

**0h! I supposed Pennsylvania was settled 
entirely by Dutch. ' ' 

''Where do you think all of our English, 
Scotch and French names came from?" was the 
rejoinder. "In point of fact, Pennsylvania had 
a greater diversity of nationality in her early 
settlement than any other state in the Union," 

Even more surprising are some remarks re- 
corded in a rather recent publication called "A 
Hoosier Holiday," in which two persons touring 
through Pennsylvania remark upon the small- 
ness and insignificance of the population. 

The census reports, of course, give the most 
convincing facts with regard to population, so 
there is no need to answer this criticism. The 
author, Mr. Theodore Dreisler, continues in 
somewhat the same vein: ''But what about 
Pennsylvania anyhow ? Why hasn 't it produced 
anything in particular? . . . For now that 
we had come to think of it we could not recall 
anyone in American political history or art or 
science who had come from Pennsylvania. Wil- 
liam Penn (a foreigner) occurred to me, Ben- 
jamin Franklin and a certain Civil War gov- 
ernor of the name of Cameron, and there 
I stuck." 

Mr. Dreisler remembers Benjamin Franklin, 
to be sure; but of "the Civil War governor 
by the name of Cameron" we must confess ig- 
norance. He certainly could not confuse any 

2 15 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

other name with that of Governor Curtin; or, 
with that of Cameron, represented hy the two 
Senators, father and son, which is equally 
well known. 

It seems strange that Mr. Dreisler did not 
happen to remember Kobert Morris, who 
financed the Revolution; or Stephen Girard, 
who did more than any one man to finance the 
War of 1812. 

' ' But where arethepoets,writers, painters ? ' ' 
asked Mr. Dreisler 's traveling companion. 

* * I paused. Not a name occurred to me. ' * 

Had he never heard of a certain Penn- 
sylvania Quaker painter, Benjamin West, who 
was president of the Eoyal Academy in London 
for many years, whose paintings were so highly 
valued that the King of England refused to 
have them leave the country unless replicas 
were furnished by the artist? Jacob Eicholtz, 
of Lancaster, was an artist of considerable note, 
as were WilliamT. Richards and a host of others, 
including JohnW.Alexander,of Pittsburgh ; and 
as to science, the Hoosier tourists must, at the 
time, have been passing quite near the birthplace 
of one of the greatest scientists and inventors 
that America has produced. ^ few miles south of 
Lancaster RobeTt Fulton was bom, who in- 
vented the first working submarine and the first 
steamboat that made a successful trip. Indeed, 
William Henry, of Lancaster, and John Fitch 

16 



INTRODUCTION 



both worked on the steamboat with considerable 
success about the same time; and another scien- 
tist, too important to be overlooked, was 
America's greatest astronomer, David Rit- 
tenhouse, a Pennsylvanian ; and by far its 
most celebrated early botanist was John Bar- 
tram, another Pennsylvanian. 

As to Pennsylvania writers, they rise up 
like a cloud of witnesses, early and late, too 
many to speak of; but we cannot refrain from 
mentioning such well-known authors as Dr. 
S. Weir Mitchell, whose works have been so 
widely read, the two distinguished Shakespear- 
ean scholars. Dr. Horace Howard Fumess and 
his son, and to go further back in the years, this 
State may claim the honor of being the home of 
the first American playwright, Thomas Godfrey, 
and the first American novelist, Charles 
Brockden Brown. Then Bayard Taylor has 
done much and well in poetry and fiction and 
George H. Boker's poems and plays are receiv- 
ing more and fuller recognition as the years go 
on; while Margaret Deland, one of our leading 
novelists, it should not be forgotten, was born 
and spent her early years in Allegheny, 
Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Dreisler may well ask ''What about 
Pennsylvania anyhow?" The trouble seems to 
be that this state does not sufficiently appre- 
ciate and make much of the work being done 

17 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

within her own borders, and for that reason 
it is not recognized by those outside of it. This 
is the more remarkable because no state has 
been endowed with more painstaking and effi- 
cient chroniclers. To such local historians of 
the past as the late John Blair Linn, Esq., of 
Belief onte; James Pyle Wickersham, LL.D., 
and the Honorable W. U. Hensel, of Lancaster; 
Dr. Charles H. Himes, of Carlisle; Dr. Alfred 
Nevin, the Eeverend Horace E. Hayden, of 
Wilkes-Barre ; Dr. W. H. Egle, of Harrisburg; 
Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker, and Dr. P. D. 
Stone, of Philadelphia, and Mr. Samuel Evans, 
of Columbia, the Pennsylvania historian of the 
future will owe a lasting debt of gratitude. 



II 

EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



To visit some of the old historic towns of 
Pennsylvania had been a cherished plan of mine 
for several years, and this year of grace 1917, 
and of war also, alas ! — fortune seemed to favor 
my desires. Kathleen Davis, who is a young 
widow and consequently quite free to follow her 
own sweet will, came to me one morning to dis- 
cuss her summer plans. July and August, she 
said, were filled with engagements in various 
directions, but a part of June was not provided 
for. Here was my opportunity, Kathleen being 
the fortunate possessor of a Rolls-Royce and 
of an exceptionally good chauffeur, so I modestly 
suggested atourto some old Pennsylvania towns. 

^'That sounds attractive," said Kathleen. 
*'I know ever so many New England towns, of 
course, and love them, and some of the Southern 
towns, like beautiful old Williamsburg and 
Charleston and Savannah; but I must confess 
that I don't know any of the towns in ray own 
state. I fancy they are all very much alike. ' ' 

^'That is just where you are mistaken," said 
I in as severe a tone as it was possible to use 
in speaking to any one as chaiining as Kath- 
leen. '*0n the contrary, they are quite indi- 

19 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

vidual in their characteristics; Lancaster and 
Bellefonte differ as widely as Salem and Stock- 
bridge, and then Washington, Bethlehem and 
Wnkes-Barre are again quite different types." 

' * That sounds still more attractive. Let me 
go with you, Serena, and try to complete my im- 
perfect education; and let us ask your friend, 
Sarah Bruce, to bear us company, and give us 
the history of every town as we pass through it. 
I am sure that Wright will enjoy this tour also, 
as he came from one of the old Pennsylvania 
towns, Chambersburg; or perhaps it is Carlisle. 
I do hope that he may not be called to the colors 
before we finish our tour. ' ' 

Kathleen is a verj^ patriotic woman and had 
accomplished an almost incredible amount of 
war work during the spring ; but when the ques- 
tion of relinquishing her invaluable chauffeur to 
the Government was mooted, her spirit of 
self-sacrifice failed to rise to the occasion. 

A few days before starting on our tour of 
discovery I became the happy possessor of a 
little book with the alliterative title of " A Pleas- 
ant Peregrination Through the Prettiest Parts 
of Pennsylvania, ' ' in which the writer, one Pere- 
grine Prolix, described a journey from Phila- 
delphia to Pittsburgh in 1836, the first lap of 
the trip being over the recently-constructed 
Columbia Railroad. We were much interested 
in contrasting the journey of Mr. Prolix with 
our own projected trip. 

20 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



After a tour through Philadelphia in an ac- 
commodating omnibus which picked up men, 
women and children at Eleventh and George 
Streets, Arch and Ninth Streets and at other 
places, all were transferred to a railroad car, 
that started from the depot on Broad Street, 
which was drawn by four fine horses. This car 
conveyed the passengers to the inclined plane 
on the western bank of the Schuylkill which was 
approached by a spacious viaduct. * ' At the foot 
of the inclined plane the horses were loosed 
from the cars, several of which were tied to an 
endless rope, moved by a steam engine placed 
on top of the plane, and finally began to mount 
the acclivity with the speed of five miles an 
hour. . . . when the cars had all arrived at 
the top of the plane, some twelve or fourteen 
were strung together like beads, and fastened 
to the latter end of a steam tug. . . . The in- 
clined plane is more than nine hundred yards in 
length and has a perpendicular rise of about 
one hundred and seventy feet." ^ 

**We left the inclined plane at ten o'clock," 
said Mr. Prolix, ' ' and were scheduled to reach 
Lancaster the same afternoon." This novel 
conveyance appears to have made good speed, 
as Mr. Prolix recorded that they reached Lan- 
caster at three o'clock in the afternoon, a great 
improvement upon the journey described by an- 

* Prolix's Pleasant Peregrinations. 
21 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

other annalist, which involved a stop overnight 
at an inn, far from luxurious, where bed linen 
being scarce, a table-cloth was given one of the 
party in lieu of a sheet. 

We set forth upon our tour of discovery in 
Pennsylvania in the sort of car that was only 
dreamed of in the days of Mr. Prolix, by Oliver 
Evans, of Philadelphia, and a few others of his 
ilk, who projected their minds into the future 
and had visions of journeys in what were spoken 
of as horseless carriages. Our point of de- 
parture was from a portion of Philadelphia 
given over, in 1836, to Schuylkill Rangers, goats 
and stray cows. From this now closely-built-up 
part of the city we made our way by Twenty- 
first Street to the Parkway, still incomplete but 
promising great beauty and utility, and on 
through the Green Street entrance to the most 
extensive and beautiful park in the world. By 
the boathouses on the banks of the Schuylkill 
and by the winding ways of the East Park we 
sped along', having on our left the old Mt. 
Pleasant Mansion, spoken of usually as the 
Benedict Arnold house, but known further back 
in history by the more popular name of the 
McPherson mansion, having been built by one 
John McPherson, a Scotchman of the clan of 
the McPhersons of Clunie. This house, some- 
what modernized, is now used by an automobile 
club. We passed by many interesting old man- 

22 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



sions — Solitude, the home of John Penn and the 
last bit of property owned by the Penn family 
in the state of Pennsylvania, where they had 
held such vast estates. Our way led us by Bel- 
mont, the hospitable home of the witty Judge 
Peters, where General Washington was so often 
a guest, and by Sweetbriar, once the home of the 
delightful annalist, Mr. Samuel Breck. Motor- 
ing by these old houses, that are now the prop- 
erty of the city of Philadelphia, we rejoiced in 
the thought that they will ever stand as historic 
landmarks linking the coming generations with 
the storied past, with the days when Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, Adams and Lafayette drove out 
here, by practically the same roads that are used 
today, to dine and sup in these old mansions. 

We crossed the Schuylkill at the Falls bridge, 
and by devious ways reached the Montgomery 
Pike and the General Wayne Inn, a famous 
hostelry in stage-coaching days, offering, as 
it did, refreshment for man and beast, in 
the first stage of the journey from Philadelphia 
to Lancaster. 

As late as the last quarter of the nine- 
teenth century the General Wayne was a favor- 
ite summer resort for Philadelphians, the days 
of its greatest glory being those when Miss 
Emily Schomberg and her mother spent 
some weeks of the summer at the hotel. 
The celebrated Philadelphia beauty brought 

23 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

to this old inn certain foreign fashions, 
as she always had her breakfast in her rooms 
and never appeared in the drawing-room 
until later in the day, beautifully gowned and 
wearing an extremely becoming hat which 
crowned rather than concealed her luxuriant 
dark hair. Here Miss Schomberg held some- 
thing of a court, as many persons in the neigh- 
borhood came to call upon her, all of whom she 
received with a certain charm and graciousness 
for which she was noted as much as for her 
great beauty. In the evening she would often 
give the guests of the old inn the pleasure of 
hearing her fine, well-trained voice, while a 

Count d'E , who came from Philadelphia 

every afternoon to call upon Miss Schomberg, 
would turn the sheets of her music. The picture 
of the Philadelphia beauty at the piano, charm- 
ing the guests of the General Wayne, while 
waiting maids and stable boys stood outside by 
the open windows listening to songs from Italy, 
England, Germany and France, seems to belong 
to another world than ours, in view of the popu- 
larity of the pianola, the victrola and all of the 
other devices that have been introduced to take 
the place of the human voice since those good 
old days in the seventies when Miss Schomberg 
sang her songs to a most appreciative audience 
at the old hostelry. 

Within a short distance of the General 

24 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



Wayne Inn is the Merion Meeting House, and a 
few miles farther on our way we came upon an- 
other historic landmark, known as the Owen 
Jones house, although built by Robert Owen, of 
Merionethshire, Wales, in 1695, as appears from 
the date carved on the cornerstone. This house, 
once surrounded by over four hundred acres, is 
still in good preservation and has become an 
attractive roadside tea-house. 

Between Haverford and Bryn Mawr we 
passed the Buck Tavern, built in 1730. This old 
hostelry was particularly interesting to Kath- 
leen, as she remembered that her grandfather 
had told her that he and his family, when jour- 
neying to Bedford Springs in their coach, al- 
ways stopped at the Buck Tavern for breakfast, 
with appetites sharpened by a nine-mile drive. 
And then, to go still further back in history, 
the main body of Washington's army was en- 
camped near here. In a letter to Congress, 
under date of September 15, 1777, the Gen- 
eral wrote : 

At the Buck Tavern, 
Three o'clock, p.m. 

We are moving up this road [the old Lancaster Road] 
to get between the enemy and Swede's Ford, and to prevent 
them from turning our right flank." 

All the country through which we were pass- 
ing is filled with lassociations of Revolution- 
ary days, especially of those weeks in the au- 
tumn of 1777, when the two generals, Washing- 

25 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

ton and Howe, were playing their spirited game 
of hide-and-seek north and west of Philadelphia, 
within an area of twenty-five or thirty miles. 

After leaving the Buck Tavern we passed by 
the lovely grounds and fine buildings of Haver- 
ford College; by White Hall, once famous for 
its summer gayeties, its dances and amateur 
theatricals, as Mr. John W. Townsend has re- 
called to us so vividly in his interesting story of 
the "Main Line"; by Bryn Mawr College, with 
its wonderful gates and its beautiful campus, 
and so on to St. Davids, through a fine stretch 
of rolling, intensively-cultivated country. 

Every road in this region passes over his- 
toric ground; every path has its legend; nearly 
every house its own traditions. We should need 
weeks instead of hours in which to enjoy it all, 
as Sarah reminded us; but we could not pass 
this way without stopping at the beautiful old 
church of St. Davids, often as we had seen it. 
This is the most perfect example of a Colonial 
country church, dignified and yet simple in its 
lines, as every rural church should be. It is not 
strange that this ancient sanctuary, with its 
stone walls draped with ivy and its beautiful 
church yard, shaded by great trees, should have 
impressed one of our distinguished American 
poets. Simplicity and dignity are harmoniously 
united in this historic building dedicated to the 
patron saint of Wales, settlers from which 

26 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



country built the church here in 1715, the curious 
outside stairway having been added much later. 

North of Stratford Station we found the 
quaint little Eagle School House, which, through 
the interest and public spirit of some citizens 
of Radnor Township, notably Mr. Henry Pleas- 
ant, Jr., has been restored and opened for a 
public library and reading-room. In the grounds 
a number of Revolutionary soldiers were buried, 
and after sleeping for over a hundred years in 
an unmarked grave, a tablet with a beautiful 
and appropriate inscription has been placed 
over their last resting-place. 

Near Devon, where the Sugartown road in- 
tersects the old Church road, we noticed a hand- 
some house with a beautiful lawn sloping gently 
down to a pond. The beauty of the place and 
Tarleton, the name on the gate-post, interested 
us, and we turned to our ever-helpful Antiquary, 
who, as usual, was able to meet our demand. 

''This house," she said, ''was a farm house 
in Colonial days, the hill on which it stands being 
an important outpost of the patriot army dur- 
ing the winter of 1778, when the main body of 
Washington's army was at Valley Forge. 
Young Hariy Lee was posted at the farm house, 
which then stood here, for the purpose of de- 
flecting supplies intended for the British army 
in Philadelphia. Lee's command consisted of 
fourteen men detailed from Colonel Theodorio 

27 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Bland's Virginia regiment. General Howe, 
having learned from Tory spies in the neighbor- 
hood of the isolated position of this farm house, 
and being in need of supplies from the rich 
country surrounding it, detached two hundred 
troopers under Tarleton to make a detour of 
Philadelphia and surprise Lee. The young 
officer and the men under him made so gallant 
a resistance against overwhelming numbers, 
that they finally succeeded in holding the fort. 
After this engagement the Commander-in Chief 
wrote Lee a personal letter commending him and 
his command for their 'gallant behaviour,' and 
with the approval of Congress advanced him to 
the rank of major with a command of two troops 
of horse, in addition to which he recommended 
the men under him for promotion. This was 
one of the many engagements in which Lee, 
afterwards known as ' Lighthorse Harry,' dis- 
tinguished himself and won the commendation 
of General Washington, with whom he was a 
great favorite. ' ' 

The present owners of the property, Dr. and 
Mrs. George C. Stout, although they have 
greatly enlarged the house and beautified the 
grounds, have retained the old name, Tarleton. 
Lee would be more appropriate, as it was Light- 
horse Harry who conferred distinction upon the 
place ; but old names cling to certain localities, 
and it is usually a mistake to change them. 

28 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



Near Paoli we turned from the pike to have 
a look at Waynesborough, the birthplace of 
General Anthony Wayne, a fine stone house in 
good preservation, where we had often been re- 
ceived by the late General and Mrs. William 
Wayne, and sat upon the self-same, high-backed 
horsehair sofa upon which General Anthony 
Wayne, Lafayette and many Revolutionary 
heroes had sat. The old house is kept much as it 
was in the days of General Wayne, and as it 
stands to-day with its substantial walls, shaded 
by great trees, it is a picturesque landmark of 
historic value that should be preserved for all 
time. General Anthony Wayne is buried in the 
beautiful grounds of St. David's Church. He 
died at Erie, Pennsylvania, whither he had gone 
to take possession of certain posts for the 
United States at Majora, Oswego, Miami and 
Delevit, which were surrendered by the English. 
While at Erie the General became seriously ill, 
died December, 1796, and was buried, according 
to his wish, on Garrison Hill, north of the pres- 
ent Soldiers' Home. In 1809 Colonel Isaac 
Wayne had his father's remains removed and 
placed in the family burial ground at St. David's 
Church, Radnor. This region is filled with asso- 
ciations of General Wayne, but we were glad to 
have the discrepancy between the date of his 
death and that of his burial at St. David's 
Church explained by Sarah, who well deserves 

29 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

the title of Antiquary which we have bestowed 
upon her. 

On the right-hand side of the pike, near 
Paoli, a tavern stands, once the General Jack- 
son, now the Franklin. The old Paoli Inn was 
long since destroyed by fire, and no new build- 
ing has taken its place. The name Paoli has 
often puzzled us ; but here again our Antiquary 
was able to answer our question. The Paoli, she 
said, was named after Pachal Paoli, a Corsican 
patriot, who at the time of the opening of the 
inn was living in exile in England and, although 
unsuccessful, was looked upon as the ideal 
patriot and champion of liberty. Paoli 's efforts 
for the freedom of Corsica were frustrated by 
the purchase of the island from the Genoese by 
France, and General Paoli, after an heroic 
struggle, became an exile. 

''That is all very interesting," I said, "but 
why was the inn named after General Paoli?" 

' ' No one knows exactly why, ' ' said the Anti- 
quary, who usually had a reason for everything, 
"except that liberty was in the air just then, 
and some enthusiast had been reading about 
General Paoli." 

After passing Paoli and climbing the steep 
hills between that station and Green Tree, a fine 
view of the beautiful Chester Valley, with the 
hills near Valley Forge in the distance, opened 
before us. Old Green Tree Inn, a familiar 

30 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



landmark for many years, was destroyed when 
the Pennsylvania Railroad straightened its 
roadbed in 1877, the new line running directly 
through the inn. At Malvern we were reminded 
that the first railroad car on the new road to 
the West Chester Intersection had arrived here 
in October, 1832. This car, which took the place 
of the Lancaster mail coach, was drawn by two 
horses and accommodated thirty passengers. 
The old-time route was given ' ' from the ancient 
Court House, Second and Market Streets, to 
the Lancaster Court House. ' ' 

A short distance south and west of the little 
town of Malvern, on Monument Avenue, is a 
tall monument which marks the site of what has 
been known for many years as the Paoli Mas- 
sacre. This, according to Dr. Charles J. Stille, 
and other able historians, is a misnomer, as the 
so-called massacre was nothing more or less 
than a night attack, not as much of a surprise 
as Washington gave the Hessians at Trenton 
in December, 1776. The difference between the 
two affairs seems to have been that Wayne's 
men resisted, fought like free Americans, as he 
said, and sixty-one of the command of twelve 
hundred were killed and a number wounded, 
while at Trenton the Hessian mercenaries were 
captured to the number of nearly ^ one thousand. 

A local tradition, still belie ved by some per- 

=" General Washington's report to Congress, Headquarters, 
Newtown, 27 December, 1776. 

3 31 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

sans in the neighborhood, was related to us by a 
friendly guide to the effect that, at the time 
of General Grey's attack, General Wayne was 
asleep in a little house still standing near the 
monument He is said to have escaped, half- 
clad, to Waynesborough, his home, several miles 
distant. There is no foundation whatever for 
this story; indeed, the official report of the 
affair entirely contradicts it. General Wayne 
was in command of his troops and seems to have 
done all that was possible to prepare them to 
resist the enemy, in the very short notice given 
him by a resident of Chester County, whom he 
spoke of as "a Mr. Jones, an old Gent'n who 
lives nearby where we were encamped." 

After leaving Malvern we passed under the 
railroad bridge and reached The Warren, as it 
is called to-day, a famous hostelry in its time, 
whose swinging sign once bore the name and 
picture of Admiral Vernon, and after the Revo- 
lution that of the patriot general, Joseph War- 
ren, who died for his country at Bunker Hill. 

These old roadside taverns, with their pic- 
turesque names. The Horse and Groom, The Old 
White Horse, the Rising Sun, The Hat, and The 
Ship, tempt one to linger over their history and 
associations; but our Antiquary reminded us 
that this work had been admirably and exhaust- 
ively done by Mr. Julius F. Sachse, Dr. John 
T. Faris and other Pennsylvania chroniclers, 

32 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



and that our object was to see some of the old 
Pennsylvania towns. 

Downingtown, our next objective point, was, 
she said, sufficiently ancient to please us, hav- 
ing been surveyed as early as 1702 for Joseph 
Cloud, Jeremiah Collett, Robert Vernon and 
Daniel Smith, all of whom took up land here. 

A short distance from The Warren we were 
attracted by a signboard, To Swedesf ord Manor, 
and being out for pleasure and not scheduled 
to reach Lancaster at any particular time, we 
concluded, with the approval of the Antiquary, 
to make a short detour in order to see the old 
Coxe and Emlen country seat, once known as 
Solitude, now Swedesford Manor. As we ap- 
proached the grounds, nothing looked familiar 
to us, except the water tower, a fine new barn 
and outbuildings having taken the place of the 
old farm buildings and the site of the original 
house being now occupied by a handsome Eliza- 
bethan structure, built by the present owner of 
the property, Mr. Clarence S. Kates. He hap- 
pened to be in the courtyard when we motored 
up to the house, and, recognizing Sarah as an 
old acquaintance, he courteously showed us his 
beautiful library, hall and dining-room, in all 
of which the wood-carving is very fine. Indeed, 
the house, inside and out, reminded us strongly 
of Haddon Hall in England. 

Returning to the pike, we passed a number 

33 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

of attractive country places with lawns shaded 
by fine old trees, among these the home of the 
Eeverend William Bull, the date, 1799, in the 
front of the house, attesting to its antiquity. 

Near Downingtown is the Cain meeting- 
house, one of the most picturesque of the old 
meetings, set aloof as it is, shaded by great forest 
trees and surrounded by a rich farming country. 
Of it John Russel Hayes, the bard of many 
Friends Meetings, might well say, as he said of 
another old sanctuary: 

The best of old and new are truly blent 
In this old house among the ancient trees, 

Set roimd with slopes of wheat and fragrant corn 
That sway and waver in the summer breeze. 

Although East and West Downingtown now 
form a busy, prosperous center, the older town 
still holds much of the village charm of what 
was once *' Downing 's Town," as Robert Brooke 
called it in his survey of 1806, and here are many 
picturesque old houses. One that particularly 
interested us with itsbeautifulColonialdoor was 
formerly the home of one of the Edge family, a 
great-uncle of Walter E. Edge, recently Gov- 
ernor of New Jersey, and now United States 
Senator. The tea-house, where we stopped for 
some light refreshment, was the residence of 
one of the early Downings. Thomas Downing 
bought nearly six hundred acres of land here as 
early as 1739. Phineas Eachus was another 

34 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



early settler; his field, according to an old sur- 
vey, separating the Great Valley Road from the 
Philadelphia Road, the latter the highway upon 
which we were so joyously traveling. From 
East Downingtown we crossed the Brandywine 
to West Downingtown, and, turning to the right 
at the Baptist Church, according to the direc- 
tions given us by one of the townspeople, we 
gained the Harrisburg Turnpike, crossed 
Beaver Creek and by a country road reached 
the charming old Valentine house, of which we 
were in search, now the home of Miss Edge. 
Beaver Creek, which later joins the Brandy- 
wine, flows by the la^vn on one side ; on the other 
side and across the road is an old mill in which 
flour was ground for the Revolutionary Army. 
The house, to which a modem gable end has 
been added, was built by Robert Valentine in 
1768. After his death his widow left the home- 
stead and removed to Bellefonte with her five 
sons and a pack of hounds. Other possessions 
Mrs. Robert Valentine may have carried with 
her to her new home, but the five sons and the 
pack of hounds seem to have been the only be- 
longings considered worthy of mention. 

Soon after our return to the highway we 
passed the site of the old Ship Tavern, now a 
private residence. A local chronicler says that 
the Ship was generally known as "The Widow 
Evans ', ' ' as it was kept for over forty years by 

85 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Mistress Susie Evans, of whom he tells the 
following story : 

"Along about sixty-five years ago Mr. Cham- 
bers, the celebrated divine and temperance lec- 
turer, came up from Philadelphia to deliver a 
lecture on temperance at Grove, in Chester 
County. He left the train at Oakland Station, 
now Whitford, and before going across he en- 
tered the hotel at that place and requested Mr. 
Boyer to give him ' a strong cup of coffee. ' A 
Mrs. Evans, who kept the Ship Tavern, in the 
same township, heard of the incident, and in the 
presence of some parties she made use of the 
expression that she wished he had come to her 
with that request, adding, 'I would have made 
it strong enough for hmi.' " From which ex- 
pression, it appeared very evident that Mis- 
tress Susie Evans would not have voted for pro- 
hibition, if the question had been put to the 
vote in her time. 

Again we crossed the very winding Brandy- 
wine, this time the west branch, which rises 
somewhere in the Welsh Mountains, and were 
speeding through Coatesville. This town, beau- 
tifully situated as it is, is so beclouded by the 
smoke of its many steel and iron furnaces that 
we are wont to forget its beauty and think of it 
only as a busy manufacturing town, one of the 
great centers of production that has done much 
to make Pennsylvania ''The Industrial Titan 
of America, ' ' as John Oliver La Gorce has been 

36 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



pleased to name it. There are, however, old 
streets in Coatesville and fine, old homes, as it 
was settled in early times, and named after 
Moses Coates, who came to Pennsylvania with 
his wife, about 1717, bringing a certificate from 
Carow, Ireland, to the Haverf ord Monthly Meet- 
ing. He afterwards owned a large part of the 
land in and around what is now Coatesville and 
lived in a house still standing on First Avenue 
which was later the home of Dr. and Mrs. Charles 
Lukens. Mrs. Lukens was a daughter of Isaac 
Pennock, who purchased from the Coates family 
the saw mill and water-power mill in 1810, 
which he then proceeded to change into an iron 
mill. Dr. Charles Lukens, Mr. Pennock 's son- 
in-law, came into the business in 1813, being the 
first person in America to make iron plate for 
the construction of boilers. On the death of 
her husband, Mrs. Lukens carried on the busi- 
ness successfully for many years. As a tribute 
to the memory of this able woman, the name 
of the works was changed to Lukens Rolling 
Mills, the name before that time having been the 
Brandywine Mills. Later, through the marriage 
of Dr. and Mrs. Lukens' daughter Isabella to 
Dr Charles Huston, the mills came into the pos- 
session of the Huston family, who still own them 
and have the distinction of making in them the 
largest steel plates ever produced, large enough 
to form the crown and sides of a locomotive in 
one piece. 

37 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

The house to which Dr. and Mrs. Lukens 
came soon after their marriage was considered 
old, even in 1816, as a part of it was built over 
a hundred years before, and the portion added 
by Moses Coates dated back to days before the 
Eevolution. Mrs. Charles Huston, in writing 
her recollections of this, her early home, spoke 
of the fine trees and beautiful garden surround- 
ing it, and of its remoteness from the busy 
world. In 1873 life in Coatesville had changed : 

**The advent of the Pennsylvania Eailroad 
into our midst was a most exciting event. Fifty 
year ago, probably, my mother, standing in her 
own doorway, and looking northward, said to 
her uncle, Joseph Webb : 

*' *I shall not be surprised one day to see a 
railroad upon the side of yonder hills. ' 

" 'That,' he replied, 'would be a miracle 
which could never happen in my time. They 
could not cross that gorge through which the 
Brandywine flows.' 

" 'Yes,' said my mother, 'they could easily 
span it with a bridge'; and so they did, but it 
did not happen until after my uncle's death. 

' * I remember, when a child, waiting for hours 
on the hill to see the first engine upon the road. 
In fact, the whole community turned out in 
great excitement to gaze at the novelty and to 
hear the first echoes reverberating among the 
hills. Now, the Wilmington and Eeading Rail- 
road traverses the valley of the Brandywine, 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



intersecting the Pennsylvania Railroad at 
Coatesville, and the old mansion is near the 
noisy angle formed by both." 

On the left-hand side of the Lincoln High- 
way, which runs directly through the town, we 
were attracted by a fine old house with balconies 
in front, now the Washington House. 

After leaving Coatesville we passed through 
the Gap, a natural passageway between the hills, 
and were in Lancaster County. Here again a 
signboard, this one marked ' ' To Honey Brook, ' ' 
beguiled us from the straight road of travel, 
and we were soon speeding along the Honey 
Brook road toward Windsor Forges and 
Churchtown, both in Caernarvon Township. 

Honey Brook is a typical old Pennsylvania 
town, with its houses, post-office and country 
store all being set near the sidewalk. Why the 
houses are thus placed in so many Pennsylvania 
towns, the garden and everything in the way of 
beauty at the rear of the house, is a question that 
has never been satisfactorily answered, al- 
though various reasons have been given, more 
or less plausible. 

After a bit of poor road and after crossing 
a bridge, we suddenly came upon the beautiful 
old mansion of Windsor Forges, whose extended 
facade, with latticed windows and wide inviting 
doorway, is separated from the road by a 
lawn and some fine trees. The hospitable 
chatelaine, who had always welcomed us to her 

39 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

home, was away, so the caretaker inf onned us ; 
but learning that we were friends of Miss 
Nevin, we were allowed to enter the grounds, 
and from an octagonal porch at the back of the 
house to enjoy the lawn, terraced down to the 
Conestoga, making, with the shrubbery, shade 
trees and parterres of old-fashioned flowers, a 
charming setting for the long, low mansion, 
which holds many memories of the past. Noth- 
ing is left of the old forge, or of the workmen's 
houses, which were situated on the winding 
Conestoga, the Crooked Creek of the Indians 
of this region ; but some remains are still to be 
seen of the cave or dugout in which the first 
settler, John Jenkins, is said to have lived until 
he was able to build a house for the shelter of 
himself and his family. Mr. Jenkins, with other 
pioneers from Wales, first settled in Chester 
County and later, tempted by a desire to further 
explore this beautiful and fertile region, they 
pushed on westward and established themselves 
in what is now Caernarvon Township, to which 
they gave its Welsh name. This was in the early 
years of the nineteenth century, the mansion 
house and the forges were built later, some time 
in the forties, by William Branson, of Philadel- 
phia, who owned the property for some years, 
and not being disposed to belittle the importance 
of his possession, named his residence after the 
palace of the King of England. David Jenkins, 
a son of the original owner, bought back Wind- 

40 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



sor Forges, with the mansion house, which has 
been in possession of the family ever since. Miss 
Blanche Nevin, the well-known sculptor, a great- 
granddaughter of the original settler, still makes 
her home during a portion of the year in the 
beautiful old mansion. 

On the lawn is a substantial little stone 
house, which was built for the storing of food 
and anmiunition in the event of an attack by the 
Indians. This house may not have been used 
for the purpose for which it was designed, as 
the Indians in this neighborhood seem to have 
been friendly. Mrs. John W. Nevin, a direct 
descendant of the first Jolm Jenkins of Windsor 
Forges, in her recollections, spoke of an Indian 
settlement near Churchtown, and she said that 
her father, the Hon. Robert Jenkins, told her of 
hunting and fishing, in his boyhood, with these 
friendly neighboring Indians. 

We passed through the pretty little village 
of ChurchtowTi, so named after the church built 
there about 1730 by Welsh settlers, a charter 
insuring them the privilege of "the free exer- 
cise" of their religion having been given them 
by William Penn some years earlier. 

An interesting social life existed in this part 
of Pennsylvania not unlike the plantation life 
of Virginia. We find associated with Mr. Wil- 
liam Branson at AVindsor Forges, Samuel 
Flower, Richard Hockley and Lynf ord Lardner, 
of Philadelphia, and in the building up of the 

41 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

town and the church many persons were inter- 
ested whose names belong to the social life of 
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other cities, 
among these were the large and influential Jen- 
kins, Nevin, Old, Jacobs and Coleman families. 
Mr, Robert Coleman, of Elizabeth Furnace, one 
of the noted iron masters of Pennsylvania, was a 
generous contributor to the little church, to 
which the town owes its name, as was Mr. Cyrus 
Jacobs, who built a fine old mansion. White Hall, 
near Churchtown. 

By devious ways, and some roads not to be 
recommended to the automobilist, we returned 
to our good friend, the Lincoln Highway. 

As we motored through Lancaster County, 
we did not wonder that some of the early settlers 
of Chester County, beautiful as it is, had pushed 
on to the west into what was later to be known 
as Lancaster County, a veritable garden region. 
The fact that the settlers here had named their 
townships Eden and Paradise shows how truly 
they appreciated their richly productive lands. 

The Lincoln Highway runs through Para- 
dise, a pretty little country town; twelve miles 
south and east of Lancaster; the most noted 
dwelling here to-day is the beautiful country 
seat of Justice LHay Brown, whose well-wooded 
lawn slopes down to the road. A little farther 
west on the Highway was David Witmer's brick 
tavern, * * The Sign of the Stage ' ' ; another house 
owned by David Witmer is now the residence 

42 



EN ROUTE TO LANCASTER 



of Judge C. I. Landis, who has written an inter- 
esting story of the first long turnpike in the 
United States. This house, once a wayside inn, 
bears a tablet which records the fact that it was 
built in 1781 by David and Esther Witmer. One 
of the interesting traditions of the house is that 
General Washington stopped here when return- 
ing from one of his expeditions to the western 
part of the state. Opposite the house a "hemp 
mill" stood, and, as the story runs, General 
Washington wished to see a ''hemp mill" with a 
view to putting one up at Mount Vernon. * * Un- 
fortunately, the person who operated the mill 
for his benefit removed some of the bracing, and 
a plank, coming in contact with the rapidly- 
moving machinery, injured the operator and 
startled the guest. Because of this unfortunate 
accident, the General concluded that he had 
no use for the machine. ' ' 

Another interesting association with this his- 
toric town is the Marquis de Lafayette's visit 
in 1825. Before the hostelry was a marble 
''uppmg block" upon which the French visitor 
alighted and upon which he stood to receive a 
number of persons who were eagerly awaiting 
his arrival. The old ' ' upping block ' ' still stands 
before the home of Judge Landis. 

Through an exquisitely beautiful country, 
filled with interesting associations, we sped on 
toward Lancaster, crossed the Conestoga and 
were in the old city. 



Ill 

THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

At a first glance, Lancaster appears to the 
tourist as a busy, modern city, with its factories 
and many lines of trolleys running in as many 
directions, but after crossing the Square and 
walking along Lime Street we found in shaded 
streets and quiet corners many associations with 
the old life of a town which, after Philadelphia, 
was for years the most important political and 
social center in Pennsylvania. The town of Lan- 
caster is fairly old, having been laid out between 
1729 and 1732, the two Hamiltons, Andrew Ham- 
ilton, Esq., and his son James, both having a 
hand in its planning. Here we find the Centre 
Square, dear to the early settler of Pennsyl- 
vania, reminiscent, as it was, of the old English 
town which he had left for the New World. Such 
a Centre Square as William Penn planned foi" 
Philadelphia, Lancaster has to-day, except that 
the good Founder's Centre Square was to be 
kept ''fair and green," and that of Lancaster 
is far too busy and bustling to admit of grass 
growing upon it. Everything in Lancaster 
comes to and goes from the Square, and there 
is no trace of the older town here, although the 

44 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

old Court House once stood in Centre, or Penn 
Square, as it was then called. A still older 
building, the log court-house, or Postlethwait 's 
Tavern, accoininodated the early justices of 
Lancaster. It was in an early and primitive 
court-house that the governors of Pennsylvania, 
Maryland, Delaware and Virginia met the In- 
dian chiefs of the Six Nations in 1744 and lis- 
tened to their complaints against the white 
settlers. Of this conference Miss Martha Bladen 
Clark gives an interesting description gleaned 
from old records and diaries.^ After the formal 
meetings of the conference were over, a dance 
was given near the home of Mr. Thomas Cook- 
son, where Governor Thomas was stopping. 
This Indian dance seems to have been of a war- 
like nature, as it represented the Indians in the 
act of besieging a fort of their enemies, and in 
view of tragic Indian massacres in several of 
the Colonies about this time, the dance, given 
in honor of the Connnissioners, could not have 
been looked upon by the inhabitants of Lancas- 
ter as an unalloyed pleasure. The savages, 
however, seem to have retired peacefully to 
their wig'wams at the conclusion of the dance, 
after being treated to light refreshment in the 
form of sangaree. Of a dinner given to the 
twenty-four chiefs of the Six Nations, Mr. Wil- 

* " The Hamilton Grant " by Martha Bladen Clark, Secre- 
tary of the Lancaster Historical Society. 

45 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

liam Marshe, Secretary to the Maryland Com- 
missioners, recorded in his diary that the din- 
ner, which seems to have been given by the 
Commissioners from Maryland, was in the 
Court House, and was attended by the Governor 
of Pennsylvania (George Thomas) and a great 
many gentlemen from other Colonies. ''There 
was," said Mr. Marshe, "a large number of in- 
habitants of Lancaster present to see the Indians 
dine. We had five tables, great variety of dishes 
and served up in very good order. The Sachems 
sat at two separate tables, at the head of one 
the famous Cannasateego sat, and the others 
were placed according to their rank. As the 
Indi'ans are not accustomed to eat in the same 
manner as the English or other polite nations 
do, we who were secretaries on this affair, with 
Mr. Thomas Cookson, Prothonotary of Lan- 
caster County; William Logan, Esq., son of Mr. 
President Logan, and Mr. Nathaniel Rigbie, of 
Baltimore County, in Maryland, carved the meat 
for them, served them with cider and wine mixed 
with water and regulated the ceremony of the 
two tables. The chiefs drank heartily and were 
very greasy before they finished their dinner, 
for by the bye they make no use of forks. Con- 
rad Weiser, the interpreter, was a guest at the 
dinner. He was highly respected by the In- 
dians. Many other prominent men were at the 
dinner, I presume, as they were members of the 

4G 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

Indian Treaty, viz. : Rev. Thomas Craddock, 
rector of St. Thomas Parish, Baltimore; Ed- 
mund Jennings, at one time secretary of the 
Honorable Commissioners of Maryland; Peter 
Worrall, who keeps an inn in Lancaster, and 
where we procured a room and a dinner; 
Andrew Hamilton, son of the distinguished law- 
yer of that name; James Hamilton, the pro- 
prietor of Lancaster, who also made the ball 
and opened it by dancing two minutes with two 
of the ladies here, which last danced wilder time 
than any Indians ; George Sanderson, who kept 
an inn, and the first town clerk of the borough of 
Lancaster ; Honorable Colonel Thomas Lee and 
Colonel William Beverly, both Virginia Com- 
missioners, both worthy descended, with His 
Excellency Thomas Bladen, Esq., Governor of 
the Province of Maryland. ' ' 

Our Antiquary left us in Lancaster, as she 
was bent upon some explorations farther north, 
in Bradford County, where she had heard inter- 
esting tales of an early French colony. Before 
leaving us she bespoke the good will of a local 
historian, who loves his Lancaster and is doing 
his best to make us love it. While walking along 
Orange Street, he reminded us that we were 
near the scene of the Indian dance of 1744, as 
Mr. Thomas Cookson's house, where he enter- 
tained Governor Thomas, was on this street. On 
Orange Street, also, is the house, still in good 

4 47 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

condition, in which Christopher Marshall lived 
and wrote his valuable and gossiping and some- 
times acrimonious diary. Passing events dur- 
ing the War of the Revolution furnished an 
interesting background for a chronicler, and at 
Marshall's hands no dramatic possibility was 
lost. Reports of the advance of the British were 
daily received; one day the enemy was said to 
be near Downingtown and pushing on towards 
Swedes Ford, another day troops were within 
eighteen miles of Lancaster, upon which 
Marshall reflects "the progress and fertility 
of the lying spirit, that moves about in and 
through the different classes of men in this 
place, attended with twistings, windings and 
turnings that it seems impossible to fix any truth 
upon them." 

Back of the lying spirit and the twistings and 
turnings, there was a background of stem real- 
ity, as the British entered Philadelphia Septem- 
ber 26th. Many of the inhabitants had already 
left, some of them, like Jacob Hiltsheimer and 
his family, going north to Trenton and after- 
wards to Reading and Bethlehem, as he recorded 
in his diary under date of October 8, 1777: 
''Dined at Bethlehem and them proceeded to 
Squire Peter Trexler's, who received us with 
great good will." This Peter Trexler, Justice 
of the Peace in Colonial days and under the Con- 
stitution, lived near Breinigsville, a village 
eight miles west of Allentown. 

48 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

The Supreme Executive Council must have 
reached Lancaster by a roundabout way, and, 
according to a story preserved in the Baker 
family, then living at Point-no Point on the 
Delaware, Governor Wharton was rowed across 
the river by Mr. Conrad Baker. 

This was evidently just before the British 
entered Philadelphia, and as the Governor and 
Council did not reach Lancaster until the 29th 
of September, several days must have been 
spent on the journey. Mr. Conrad Baker's ac- 
count of the departure of the Governor and 
Council is interesting as from a person living 
on the Delaware at that time. Mr. Baker said 
the Governor rode directly to his house and 
hastily asked of Mr. Baker some means of trans- 
portation across the. Delaware. Mr. Baker 
replied that he would first have to hobble the 
horses in the field to delay or to prevent the 
British from using them in place of their own 
jaded steeds. This he hastily did, and then con- 
ducted the Governor to the river bank, but be- 
fore they could start to cross they heard the 
report of the British firearms from the house. 
''There," said Mr. Baker, ''they have shot the 
dogs, ' ' which ultimately proved to be true. He 
assured the Governor that he had no fear for 
his family, as the soldiers would not kill women 
and children, so they both concealed themselves 
in the bushes until a favorable opportunity for 

49 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

escape presented itself, when they at once took 
to the boat and rowed across to Jersey, as is 
supposed, to the residence of Mr. Browning, who 
lived on the opposite shore. Another version of 
the story, and a less probable one, is that Mrs. 
Baker rowed the Governor across the river. 
However this may be, the Bakers seem to have 
had a hand in getting him across. 

For one day, Lancaster had the distinction 
of being the seat of the Continental Congress. 
Marshall recorded in his diary September 29th : 
' ' Many of the inhabitants of Philadelphia came 
to-day, as did our President or Governor, the 
Executive Council and the members of the 
Assembly who met here this day in the Court 
House," The same day Congress set off for 
Yorktown. The reason for the removal of the 
Congress is obvious, Lancaster is only sixty- 
eight miles from Philadelphia, the goal of the 
British army, and directly on the route to that 
city, while York, some miles south and west, 
looked like a safer place of meeting. As it hap- 
pened, the British did not stop in Lancaster 
en route to the capital city, and the government 
of Pennsylvania was carried on in this to^vll 
during the War of the Eevolution and for some 
time after. 

Timothy Matlack, Secretary of the Supreme 
Executive Council, also lived on Orange Street, 
nearly opposite Marshall's old residence. An- 

50 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

other interesting" house is that of Caleb Cope. 
In this house, on the north side of Grant Street, 
near Lime Street, was lodged Major John 
Andre. The young British officer had been made 
a prisoner of war by General Eichard Mont- 
gomery when St. Johns was captured by him in 
November, 1775. Writing to a friend at this 
time, Andre said, "I have been taken prisoner 
by the Americans and stripped of everything 
except the picture of Honora,- which I concealed 
in my mouth." A number of other prisoners 
were taken at this time, some of whom were 
brought to Lancaster, wliich, like Beading and 
York, was considered a safe place for the lodg- 
ing of prisoners, being convenient to both capi- 
tals and yet not so close to the scene of militaiy 
operations as to be unsafe for prisoners of war. 
Many of these prisoners reached Lancaster in 
a destitute condition, and when the Government 
was unable to supply them with food and cloth- 
ing, they were given the comforts of life by 
Matthias Slough. "The men," says the late 
Mr. W. U. Hensel, one of Lancaster's valued his- 
torians, "were kept at the barracks, surrounded 
by a stockade ; and the British officers lodged at 
public or private houses. Andre not only found 
shelter under the roof of Cope, but had con- 
genial associations with his family. That it was 

^ Honora Sneyd, to whom Andre was devotedly attached. 
She afterwards became the wife of Richard Edgeworth, and 
th-e step-mother of Maria Edgeworth. 

51 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

not a popular thing for a Quaker to give even 
this semblance of aid and comfort to the enemy 
may be judged from the fact that the mob 
smashed all of the windows of the Cope man- 
sion. The citizens who had tolerated, if not 
encouraged, such demonstrations, redeemed 
themselves somewhat, however, by afterwards 
liberally assisting Cope to reconstruct his house 
when it had been accidentally damaged by fire. ' ' 

Besides Major Andre, there was lodged with 
Cope another prisoner, Lieutenant-Colonel Ed- 
ward Marcus Despard, an Irish soldier of for- 
tune. Mr. Thomas C. Cope, in writing his recol- 
lections of Major Andre, said: *'I was, at that 
time, a small boy, but well remember Andre's 
bland manners, sporting with us children as one 
of us, more particularly attached to John. We 
often played marbles and other boyish games 
with him. ' ' 

To John Cope the young officer gave some 
lessons in drawing and painting and to William 
Barton also. Barton became an excellent 
draughtsman, and afterwards drew the design 
for the seal of the United States. An odd coin- 
cidence, it seems, that he should have received 
instruction from this British prisoner of war 
in Lancaster. That Andre received many kind 
attentions and made a number of friends in this 
town appears from a letter written from Car- 
lisle, to which town he and Colonel Despard 

52 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

were removed later. In this letter, addressed 
to Mr. Eberhardt Michael, of Lancaster, Andre 
sent messages to his friends. ''If you see Mr. 
Wirtz and Eev. Mr. Hellemuth and H. Graff, 
please give my respects to them — from the last- 
mentioned I have received the maps, and thank 
him. " In a postscript he added, ' ' If you should 
see Mr. Slough, have the kindness to request 
him to write to me. His silence makes me at 
a loss about him. ' ' The Mr. Slough alluded to 
was Colonel Mathias Slough, who did so much 
to make the British prisoners of war comfort- 
able while in Lancaster. 

This letter, of which Judge Landis, of Lan- 
caster, has furnished a translation, is written 
in German, and is of especial interest as the only 
letter in that language written by Andre kno\vn 
to exist. It proves this versatile and charming 
young officer to have possessed one more among 
the many accomplishments that delighted his 
friends and served to relieve the monotony of 
his imprisonment. "We pass our time," he 
says, ''in making music, reading books, and 
await humbly our liberation, and upon more 
peaceable times." 

Beading such letters as this, one does 
not wonder that the Cope boys, and all with 
whom he was associated, loved this ill-fated 
young officer. 

From the Cope house and its interesting 

53 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

associations, we come back to Orange Street. 
At the comer of East Lime Street is the charm- 
ing home of the Misses Kline, daughters of Mr. 
George Kline, with its garden on Orange 
Street, and directly opposite is the handsome 
building of the Young Women's Christian Asso- 
ciation. While rejoicing that any city should 
own so well equipped and comfortable a home 
for working women as this, of which Lancaster 
may well be proud, we cannot help regretting 
the fine old Shippen house, whose site it occu- 
pies. This house, which has met the fate of so 
many old residences, was, in 1752, the home of 
Edward Shippen, a grandson of Edward Ship- 
pen, of Cheshire, England, who was perse- 
cuted in Boston for the sin of being a Quaker, 
and removed to Philadelphia to become its hon- 
ored Mayor. It being a habit in the Shippen 
family to be Mayors of Philadelphia, this Ed- 
ward Shippen, son of Joseph, held that and 
other important positions in Philadelphia be- 
fore he removed to Lancaster. Here Mr. Ship- 
pen became Recorder and Register for the 
County and acted as paymaster for supplies for 
the troops under Generals Forbes, Stanwix and 
Bouquet. Living near Mr. Shippen 's fine old 
mansion on Orange Street, Christopher Mar- 
shall, who was often severe in his strictures upon 
the joys of life, recorded in his diary, of Sunday, 
July 26, 1778, a bit of pleasant sociability with 

64 




The Brethren's Church and Parsonage, Lancaster 




House of Edward Shippen of Lancaster 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

Mr. Sliippen, with whom he walked home from 
the ''Dutch Presbyterian Meeting House," 
where they had listened to a discourse from 
''one Fifer, minister of the Church of Eng- 
land." "Returned with Shippen," he wrote, 
"who pressed me to stop at his house, and drink 
a glass of beer of his own brewing. ' ' 

A less peaceful Sunday than this of July 
26th, when Mr. Marshall and Mr. Shippen 
drank beer of the latter 's own brewing, was that 
Sunday in December, 1763, when Mr. Shippen, 
as chief burgess of Lancaster, was called out of 
church in consequence of a sudden foray of the 
Paxton boys, who suddenly appeared in the 
yard of the Swan Inn, as Mr. Shippen isaid 
in his report to the Governor, "upwards of a 
hundred armed men from the post road rode 
very fast into town, turned their horses into 
Mr. Slough's and proceeded with the greatest 
precipitation to the workhouse, where they stove 
in the door and killed all the Indians." 

The premeditated murder, in cold blood, of 
these captive Conestogas by men who belonged 
to a civilized nation is one of the blackest pages 
in the history of Pennsylvania. 

After the death of Edward Shippen, the fine 
old mansion on Orange Street passed into the 
hands of his son Edward, the Chief Justice, 
whose daughter Peggy was the wife of Bene- 
dict Arnold. The house was afterwards bought 

56 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

by Joseph Shippen, another son of Edward of 
Lancaster. This Joseph Shippen, who lived for a 
time in the old Lancaster home, was an able man, 
a public-spirited citizen, a soldier and, \vithal, 
something of a gallant, as is proved by his 
''Lines Written in an Assembly Eoom," cele- 
brating the charms of such Philadelphia belles 
of his time as Sally Cox, Polly Franks, Kathe- 
rine Inglis and the Chew sisters, both so fair 
that the poet was at a loss to decide which was 
the fairer : 

With either Chew such beauties dwell, 
Such charms of each ai'e shared, 

No critic's judging eye can tell 
Which merits most regard. 

That Mr. Shippen did not descant upon the 
charms of Lancaster belles was probably due to 
the fact that he came to live in this town late 
in life, when his dancing and ball-going days 
were over. After his death in 1810 the old home 
passed into the hands of Edward Shippen Burd 
and was later bought by the Honorable Walter 
Franklin, Attorney-General of the Common- 
wealth and an honored citizen of Lancaster. 
Judge Franklin was a nephew of Mr. Walter 
Franklin, of New York, whose home at the 
comer of Pearl and Cherry Streets was chosen, 
in 1789, as the most suitable in the city 
for the residence of President Washington, 
and is spoken of in letters of the period as 

66 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

*'the Palace," being looked upon as a very 
elegant mansion. 

After being in the Franklin family for 
twenty-six years, the Shippen House became the 
property of Mr. Emanuel C. Reigart, and was 
the scene of much charming hospitality. If those 
who have lived in and have been entertained in 
this house could come back to their old-time 
haunts, what surprises would be theirs, and 
what would they think of this beautifully- 
equipped home for working girls that occupies 
the site of the old house, with its library, gym- 
nasium and swimming pool? 

*'And what," said Kathleen, ''would the 
pretty little Mennonite waitresses think of them? 
How scared they would be to see old-fashioned 
spirits stalking through this modern dining- 
room ! ' ' 

''Do spirits never change their fashions?" 
asked the Antiquary, laughing at Kath- 
leen's fancy. 

"Never, and neither do the Mennonites and 
Amish, as far as I can see. I asked one of the 
pretty waitresses if she wore her coquettish lit- 
tle cap because it was becoming. She seemed 
quite shocked at my levity, and said that she 
had to wear it." 

"Yes, they have to have the head covered, 
and no one could object to the little cap which 
sets off a pretty face; but the bonnets are not 

67 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

so becoming, and I even knew of an engagement 
being broken off on account of the bonnet. It 
appears that the suitor had never seen the girl 
in her black bonnet, and when he found that 
there was no way of getting out of wearing it 
he simply backed out. ' ' 

''Very ungallant," said Kathleen, "but the 
bonnets are a mortification to the flesh. ' ' 

This being a market day, we had seen many 
of the country people in the streets, in their dis- 
tinctive costume, and when we stopped at the 
Christian Association for a cafeteria luncheon 
we found a number of the Mennonite women 
seated at table. Seeing them there enjoying a 
good luncheon we felt very much as John Adams 
felt about the Quakers in Philadelphia: glad 
that there was one carnal vanity in which they 
could indulge, that of good living. 

On our way back to the Stevens House, 
which, although it bears the name of Thaddeus 
Stevens, is built upon the site of the old Krugh 
house, we passed by the Lutheran Church, where 
we stopped to read some tablets on the wall, in 
honor of General Mifflin and President Whar- 
ilton. The latter died in May, 1778, while Gov- 
' eraor of Pennsylvania, and was buried inside 
of the church in front of the pulpit and altar. 

Although the death of the President of the 
Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania 
was a serious loss at this time and was deeply 

58 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

regretted, the funeral seems to have been a 
rather convivial affair, as appears from a bill 
of expenses recently found among some old 
papers, in which the sums spent for fiddles used 
at the funeral of President Wharton and for 
many gallons of punch consumed at the same 
are set forth at length. 

The Episcopal Church, Saint James, was 
closed in 1776, in consequence of the resigna- 
tion of the rector, Mr. Thomas Barton, which 
probably accounts for the fact that President 
Wharton was not buried in its beautiful 
church yard. 

Born in Ireland and educated in Dublin, Mr. 
Barton was not in sympathy with Revolutionary 
methods. He was an able and scholarly man, 
and was greatly respected for his missionary 
labors among the Indians. One of the diarists 
of the time recorded: ''Mr. Barton, the English 
parson, sold his house to his son-in-law, Zant- 
zinger, and left with his mfe for Boston, and 
from thence to England. He refused to take 
the oath. ' ' Mr. Barton, however, did not reach 
England, as he was taken ill in New York, died 
there and was buried in the grounds of Saint 
George's Chapel. 

Mr. Barton's first wife was a sister of the 
celebrated astronomer and mathematician, 
David Rittenhouse; their son. Dr. Benjamin 
Smith Barton, became a distinguished physician 

59 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

and botanist ; another son, William, it was who 
designed the seal of the United States. 

Before going back to our hotel, our cicerone 
insisted that we should visit the tomb of Thad- 
deus Stevens in Schreiner 's Cemeteiy. Despite 
his Vermont birth, Lancaster claims Thaddeus 
Stevens as her own, and with all his varied 
achievements perhaps Pennsylvania's heaviest 
debt of gratitude to Thaddeus Stevens is the 
work accomplished by him for the public schools 
of this state. Some of Mr. Stevens' eloquent 
and impassioned pleas for the free school sys- 
tem, delivered in the House at a critical period 
in the history of education, have been preserved 
and prove how highly this Vermont farmer's son 
valued the educational advantages that had 
come to him through the care and self-sacrifice 
of a wise and devoted mother. In recognition 
of Mr. Stevens' valuable service to the cause 
of education, one of the finest buildings of the 
Girls' High School is named Stevens Hall. 
Other citizens of Lancaster who did much for 
the cause of the public school and the high 
school were Thomas H. Burrowes and James P. 
Wickersham. Both of these men were indefati- 
gable in their labor for the cause of free educa- 
tion. The Wickersham School in Pittsburgh 
was so named in Mr. Wickersham 's honor, and 
another enduring monument is his exhaustive 
and interesting work upon education in Penn- 

60 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

sylvania from the settlements of the Swedes 
and Dutch on the Delaware to our own tune. 

We often passed by the beautiful grounds 
and fine building's of Franldin and Marshall 
College ; and we could not think of leaving Lan- 
caster without stopping at the Juliana Library, 
whose name had alwaj^s interested me, and then 
it was one of the earliest libraries in Pennsyl- 
vania, which was the leader in all the Colonies 
in establishing circulating libraries. Doctor 
Franklin's came first, then the little library at 
Hatboro, started in 1755, and the Juliana was 
the third library. 

Mr. Henderson says that the first name was 
the Lancaster Library Company, but later, when 
a charter was granted by Governor James Ham- 
ilton, in 1763, the name given was the Juliana 
Librar}^ No reason for this change of title has 
been given, and no record of a considerable do- 
nation in money or in books by the lady after 
whom the library was named has been found. 
Lady Juliana Penn, wife of Thomas Penn, one 
of the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania. 

** Perhaps," said Kathleen, 'Hhe name Juli- 
ana was given in the hope of eliciting substan- 
tial aid from the noble godmother." 

''Probably, but we found no mention of any 
considerable donation from the high-born 
lady," said Mr. Henderson. ''The earliest sub- 
scribers, whose names were appended to the 

61 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

constitution and by-laws, are those of Thomas 
Barton, rector of St. John's Church; Samuel 
and Joseph Boude, William Atlee, Robert Ful- 
ton, father of the inventor; Adam Kuhn, Jr., 
Edward Shippen, William Bauseman and 
George Ross, the signer, whose house was on 
King Street." 

Another morning we made our way to Saint 
James Church, which stands on a shaded cor- 
ner of Orange Street. This interesting old 
building dates back to days long before the 
Revolution. James Hamilton, who o'svned a 
large tract of land in Lancaster, gave three 
town lots to this parish in 1744, and the stone 
church was completed in 1753. Thomas Cook- 
son and John Postlethwaite, who kept his 
famous tavern on the great Conestoga road, 
were wardens of St. James some years before 
the building was finished. In 1753 it still lacked 
a steeple, and we find, as in the case of the par- 
ishioners of Christ Church, Philadelphia, that 
there seem to have existed no conscientious 
scruples against a lottery for the benefit of the 
church, and in 1761 it was recorded that the 
drawings of the lottery were reported finished, 
and a little later that the graveyard was *' en- 
closed with a stone wall covered with cedar 
shingles." This was while the Rev. Thomas 
Barton was rector of the church. 

Interesting as the building is, with its tablets 

62 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

and handsome memorial windows, we were more 
inclined to wander through the old graveyard 
under the elms and blooming catalpas on this 
June day. Here sleep many of the sons and 
daughters of old Lancaster. Franklins, Cole- 
mans, Atlees, Grrubbs, Sloughs, Slaymakers, 
Hands and Clarksons, and one of the oldest 
tombstones in the churchyard is that of Thomas 
Cookson,who seems to have been fervent in spirit 
as well as diligent in business, as he was one of 
the chief supporters of the old church. Here also 
is the grave of WilliamAugustus Atlee,who held 
many important positions in Lancaster and in 
1791 was appointed Judge of the Court of Penn- 
sylvania, which seems to have been composed of 
the counties of Chester, Lancaster, York and 
Dauphin. A grandson of Judge Atlee, Dr. John 
Light Atlee, widely known in his day as one of 
the great physicians and surgeons of Pennsyl- 
vania, is buried here, and here under pyramidal 
monuments rest the Honorable Jasper Yeates 
and his wife, Sarah Burd Yeates. Of this 
learned jurist, Mr. William F. Woemer, the 
chronicler of the history and associations of this 
old churchyard says: "As a. judge, he com- 
manded the highest respect and deference; his 
decisions from the Bench were clear and de- 
cisive, and indicated a profound knowledge of 
the Constitution and laws of the country. In 
his social relations he was most kind, cheerful 

5 63 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

and of a very affectionate disposition. But, 
better than all, lie was a thorough Christian 
gentleman." Here also near the church that 
they served as rectors rest the mortal remains 
of the Rev. Joseph Clarkson and Bishop Sam- 
uel Bowman, whose wife was the daughter of 
Doctor Olarkson. Under the shadow of the 
church are the tombs of the Hon. Robert Cole- 
man and his wife, and near by those of his two 
daughters, Anne and Sarah. 

The unhappy love affairs of these two fair 
girls are still discussed with interest by old 
Lancastrians, as the world loves a mystery 
and a mystery has always surrounded these ro- 
mances. The interest in the breaking of the 
engagement between Anne Coleman and James 
Buchanan was enhanced by subsequent events in 
his career. The story has often been told, and 
with many variations, but the simple and un- 
adorned tale is that when a young man Mr. 
Buchanan became engaged to Anne C. Coleman, 
a daughter of the Hon. Robert Coleman. Miss 
Coleman is described by those who knew her as 
beautiful and singularly attractive, and the 
course of true love seemed to be running 
smoothly, as Mr. Coleman had given his con- 
sent to the marriage, when the young lady sud- 
denly broke her engagement, for what reason 
the world has never known. All that the little 
world of Lancaster knew was that Mr. Buchanan 

64 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

received a note while in court, which he read, 
looked very much troubled and left the court- 
room soon after. A few days later Miss Cole- 
man died while visiting a friend in Philadel- 
phia. Mr. Buchanan, in writing to Mr. Cole- 
man, said, ' * You have lost a dear, dear daughter. 
I have lost the only earthly object of my affec- 
tions, without whom life now presents to me a 
dreary blank." Mr. Buchanan was faithful to 
the memory of his early love as he never mar- 
ried, and at Wheatland, and in Washington, his 
house v/as presided over by his beautiful and 
accomplished niece. Miss Harriet Lane, who is 
still remembered in Lancaster. After a varied 
and interesting experience, at home and abroad. 
Miss Lane married Henry E. Johnston, of Bal- 
timore. Mr. Buchanan entirely approved of his 
niece 's choice, and in writing to her gave her a 
w^aming that shows how deeply his own un- 
happy experience had impressed itself upon his 
mind: ''Beware of unreasonable delays in the 
performance of the ceremony, lest they may 
be attributed to an improper motive. ' ' 

Sarah Coleman's experience was equally un- 
happy, but less mysterious than that of her 
sister. She was engaged to the Reverend Wil- 
liam Augustus Muhlenberg who was co-rector 
of St. James Parish for some years. ''During 
his residence here," says Mr. William F. Woer- 
ner, "he did much to further the cause of edu- 

65 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

cation. He also instituted an evening service 
in the church, which so angered the father of 
his beloved Sarah that it * prevented him from 
attaining the dearest object of his heart.' 
Shortly after the episode that was so painful to 
him, he tendered his resignation. He was pre- 
vailed upon to reconsider it, but this he refused. 
It is said that when Muhlenberg departed from 
Lancaster he left behind him the grave of all his 
earthly hopes, and that when he did return to 
visit the first and last place to w^hich he turned 
his steps was to the grave in Saint James 
churchyard. He never visited it without 
taking with him a spray of the sweetbrier 
which grew there. He, like James Buchanan, 
never married." 

This is one story; another and even more 
romantic tale is that Mr. Muhlenberg threw into 
the grave of the beloved Sarah Coleman the 
engag''ement ring and a copy of his famous 
hymn, "I Would Not Live Alway," the pathetic 
lines of which were the outcome of his sorrow. 
As we left the shaded churchyard, with its beau- 
tiful trees and its many associations, we realized 
that much romance as v/ell as history was buried 
here — romances of real life more thrilling and 
pathetic than those to be found between the 
covers of novels. 

Strolling about the old parts of the town, 
we remarked upon the good taste of the Lan- 

66 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

castrians in retaimng suchinterestingnames for 
the streets as King and Queen, Orange, Duke and 
Prince, to which our Antiquary, who had kindly 
offered to guide us to some of the old houses, 
said: "Yes, that was wise; but with the abol- 
ishing of the old inns of which there were at one 
time as many as fifty-three, we have lost such 
picturesque names as 'The Indian Queen,' 
'Grape,' 'Conestoga Waggon,' 'Doctor Frank- 
lin,' 'Golden Fleece,' and 'Earl of Chatham.' 
By the way, this latter well-painted sign still 
preserved, is a good example of the early work 
of Jacob Eichholtz, one of our best Lancaster 
artists. The Bull's Head, which once stood at 
the comer of East King and Christian Streets, 
was kept by the artist's mother, Catharine Eich- 
holtz, whose license gave her permission 'to 
sell rum by the small.' So, quite naturally, 
Jacob Eichholtz began by painting tavern 
signs, although he afterwards painted portraits 
of many of the most distinguished men of 
his time." 

' ' Wliere did he learn his art ? " I asked. 

"When Sully was in Lancaster, in 1808, 
painting Governor Snyder, he gave Eichholtz 
some instruction in painting. In view of the 
celebrity gained by Eichholtz later, Sully's criti- 
cisms seem ungenerous. He said, 'Eichholtz 
was then employing all his leisure hours, stolen 
from the manufacture of tea-kettles and coffee 

67 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

pans, in painting. His attempts were hideous. 
He kindly offered me the use of his painting 
room, which I gladly accepted, and gave him 
during my stay in Lancaster all the information 
I could impart. When I saw his portraits a few 
years afterwards (in the interim he had visited 
and copied Stuart), I was much surprised and 
gratified. I have no doubt that Eichholtz would 
have made a first-rate painter had he begun 
early in life, with the usual advantages.' " 

The influence of Gilbert Stuart upon the 
style of Eichholtz is much more marked than 
that of Sully, and those who had an opportunity 
of seeing a collection of paintings by Lancaster 
artists, held in 1912, were impressed by the ex- 
cellence of the work of Eichholtz as well as by 
his great industry. Here were portraits of 
General John Steele, James Buchanan, William 
Jenkins, of Thaddeus Stevens, and of such other 
noted citizens as the Franklins, Yeates, Stein- 
mans, Frazers, Eeigarts, Mayers, and Jacobs. 

Mr. Hensel says that it was only when his 
fellow-townsman, "the late Hon. Thomas JI. 
Burrowes, became conspicuous in state politics 
and the Secretary of the Commonwealth under 
Governor Ritner, that Eichholtz got his right 
place as painter at 'the Republican Court' in 
Harrisburg." Portraits by Eichholtz are in 
many galleries and museums to-day, and are 
much prized heirlooms in numerous private 

68 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

families. In view of his limited opportunities, 
the success of this Lancaster boy, who began 
life as a coppersmith, seems very remarkable. 

This old town was the home of other artists, 
among them of Robert Fulton, whose fame as 
an inventor quite eclipsed his work as an artist. 
Some afternoon we shall motor down to his 
birthplace near Quariyville. 

At the comer of Prince Street, our 
Antiquary pointed out to us the Moravian 
graveyard, telling us that many Moravians 
settled here and in Lititz in the eighteenth 
century, among them such leading families 
as the Steinmans. 

"In this cemetery," he said, "are buried 
Colonel William Henry and his wife. You may 
remember that he is one of several claimants 
to the honor of having made the first practical 
steamboat. However that may be, two other 
Pennsylvanians worked upon this invention, 
and William Henry seems to have received his 
first idea of the propelling of boats by steam 
from the inventions of Watt when in England 
in 1760. John Fitch, who made his experiments 
on the Neshammy over in Bucks County, and 
Robert Fulton, when a lad, visited William 
Henry's home and both doubtless owe something 
of value to his experiments." It is interesting, 
however, to realize that the first workable 
steamboat came from Pennsylvania, even if 

G9 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

the brains of three of her sons were engaged in 
its evolution. 

Colonel Henry was a distinguished man and 
a useful citizen, quite aside from his work on 
the steamboat, as he held many important posi- 
tions, was Armorer for the Braddock and Forbes 
expeditions, member of Assembly and Treas- 
urer of Lancaster County from 1777 until his 
death in 1786, when his wife succeeded him in 
this responsible office. David Rittenhouse was 
Treasurer of Pennsylvania at this time, and 
many letters, still preserved, prove the confi- 
dence reposed by him in this able woman treas- 
urer. Indeed, all who knew her spoke of Mrs. 
William Henry as a woman of great ability. 

An amusing little story is told of her first 
meeting with her future husband, when she was 
Miss Ann Wood, at a tea-party given at his 
house by his sister, Mrs. Mary Bickman, to 
which Ann and two other girls were invited. 
Mrs. Bickman, who evidently had in mind her 
brother's settling for life, had a broom placed 
across the hall through which the three girls 
would pass on their way from the garden to the 
tea-table. Wlien summoned to tea, the first 
damsel, when she reached the broom, pushed it 
aside ; the second stepped over it ; but the third, 
wise and orderly Ann Wood, picked it up and set 
it in its place. 

Young Henry, believing that order was 

70 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

earth's as well as heaven's first law, made up 
his mind, then and there, to marry Ann "Wood, 
which he did soon after. We may well believe 
that the mothers of old Lancaster pointed many 
a moral with the story of Ann Wood and the 
fateful broom. 

From Prince Street we mad© our way to 
Chestnut Street and to the site of the old hos- 
telry long kno^ai as the Cadwell House, 
now the Brunswick, from whose balcony 
three Presidents of the United States have 
spoken, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln and 
Theodore Roosevelt. 

To Mr. J. M. W. Geist, of the Daily Evening 
Express, we are indebted for an account of Mr. 
Lincoln's visit to Lancaster, on the 22nd of 
February, 1861. 

"A booming of cannon welcomed Mr. Lincoln 
and his party to Lancaster and announced his 
approach. He took a look at the environs from 
the outside platform as the car crossed 
the Conestoga. 

' ' Though in mid- winter, the day of Mr. Lin- 
coln 's arrival was perfect as to weather of win- 
ter sunshine ; and the people who thronged the 
station, Chestnut and North Queen Streets, suf- 
fered no discomfort while they waited for hours. 
Hundreds of Lancastrians had gone to Harris- 
burg for the ceremonies there, including the 
local military, the Fencibles and the Jones ar- 

71 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

tillery of Safe Harbor, the American and Union 
Fire Companies, 'with banners, bands and 
men/ Every square foot of space surrounding 
the Cadwell House was taken up with men and 
women on their feet. The front windows were 
crowded, rooms having been engaged for days 
in advance. The Jackson Rifles, under Captain 
H. A. Hambright, policed the situation, and 
when Colonel Dickey escorted Mr. Lincoln to the 
balconj^ with Big Pete Fordney as bodyguard, 
a broad lane was opened to let them pass 
through the crowd to the Cadwell House. Here 
from the balcony Mr. Lincoln spoke briefly, as 
was his wont ; indeed, his time was limited to a 
few minutes, and he added with his usual wis- 
dom, 'The more a man speaks in these days, 
the less he is understood. As Solomon says, 
there is a time for all things, and the present 
is a time for silence.' In a few days, he said, 
the time would be here for him to speak officially, 
and he would then endeavor to speak plainly in 
regard to the Constitution and the liberties of 
the American people. Until he should so speak, 
he deemed it unnecessary to say more. He 
would again greet his friends most heartily, and 
at the same time bid them farewell. 

"So carefully was the scheduletime observed 
that the arrival and departure of Mr. Lincoln 
seemed to those present like the shifting scenes 
of a panorama to be remembered like a dream. 

72 



THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN 

Before leaving- this region, Mr. Lincoln ex- 
pressed a desire to see the home of his prede- 
cessor in office, and Wheatland, the home of Mr. 
Buchanan, was pointed out to him, this side of 
Dillersville. At Mount Joy, Brady, the axe- 
maker, got special recognition, because Mr. Lin- 
coln knew his cutlery." In Elizabethtown and 
Middletown enthusiastic crowds cheered the 
train, and so his party sped on to Harrisburg, 
where another warm welcome awaited them. 
Those who are able to recall incidents of these 
visits of the President-elect to Philadelphia, 
Lancaster, Harrisburg and other towns on the 
route must regard them in the retrospect as the 
opening scenes of a great drama, which was later 
enacted before them, a drama destined to end in 
that woeful tragedy at Ford's Theatre in Wash- 
ington on the evening of April 14, 1865. 



IV 
LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

Lancaster is a good place to go from as well 
as to come to, as there are so many points of 
interest within a radius of thirty miles which 
beckon to us across good roads and by several 
trolley lines. 

One afternoon we devoted to a trip to 
Quarryville and the Fulton House, in Fulton 
Township. We had seen the house of the elder 
Robert Fulton, on Centre Square, and were now 
in quest of the house in which Robert, the in- 
ventor, was bom. Our way was by the old 
Baltimore road, through a rich corn- and to- 
bacco-growing country. Our Antiquary, Mr. 
Henderson, was with us and gave us interesting 
details of the reunion at the Fulton House in 
August, 1907, to celebrate the successful trip of 
Robert Fulton 's Clermont on the Hudson River 
a hundred years earlier. Although he had ac- 
companied the delegation from the Historical 
Society of Lancaster that had planned this cen- 
tennial celebration, Mr. Henderson was not 
quite sure as to the best road to take from 
Quarryville, so we stopped at this little town 
to make inquiries, and in the hope of securing 
a photograph of the Fulton House. We were 

74. 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

directed to the barber of the town, who was said 
to have taken a photograph of the home on the 
day of the celebration. The barber, smiling and 
rosy-cheeked, left his client unshaven and un- 
shorn, while he explained that he could not lay 
his hands on his photograph, but that we might 
find one at the newspaper office. We then mo- 
tored to the office of the Sun, but not meeting 
with success there we were obliged to depend 
upon Kathleen's kodak, a slun dependence, she 
said, as the sky was overcast and she was not 
an expert in time exposures. 

We reached the goal of our quest soon after, 
as the Fulton House is only seven miles from 
Quarryville and about twenty miles south of 
Lancaster. The house stands on the right-hand 
side of the road ; we knew it by the bronze tablet 
on the front and by the huge buttonwood tree 
that overshadows it on one side. The original 
stone building has been added to, but the tablet 
on which are recorded Robert Fulton's services 
to his country and to the world distinguishes the 
old building from later additions. 

We were cordially received by Mr. Joseph 
Swift and his family, the owners of the house, 
who showed us some of the rooms. In the sec- 
ond-floor room over the parlor Robert was born 
in November, 1765. A year after his birth his 
father sold the house and surrounding land to 
Joseph Swift, of Philadelphia, and removed 
with his family to Lancaster. 

75 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

We were interested to hear that the descend- 
ants of the Joseph Swift who bought this old 
house from the elder Fulton are still living here. 
The present owner, another Joseph Swift, in- 
troduced us to several members of his family, 
among them a young girl, the fifth in descent 
from the Joseph Swift who first came to the 
Fulton House. 

As we crossed the Conowingo and motored 
homeward, after securing as good a photograph 
as could be had between showers, we had a curi- 
ous sensation of having taken a trip into the 
eighteenth century, so unchanged is this tiny 
village, with its post-office, its country store and 
the old stone house, which gives to it its sole 
claim to distinction. August, 1907, must have 
been a gala day in Little Britain Township, 
when a large company from the surrounding 
country, from Lancaster and nearby towns, and 
from New York and other cities equally remote, 
came here to honor the memory of the great 
genius who was born in this little stone house. 

We next hear of Fulton, at the age of eight, 
as a pupil at the school of Caleb Johnson, a 
Quaker pedagogue, his widowed mother pre- 
viously having taught him to read. The guid- 
ance of this bright boy up the steep path of 
learning could not have been an unalloyed pleas- 
ure, as he sometimes came to his classes with 
poorly prepared lessons, for which he excused 

76 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

himself by saying that his head "was so full of 
original ideas that there was no vacant chamber 
in it for the storing away of the contents of 
dusty books. ' ' One may well imagine the effect 
of this speech upon the teacher; but some meas- 
ure of egotism may be pardoned on the part of 
a boy who at nine made himself an excellent 
pencil out of a bit of lead, who at thirteen in- 
vented a skyrocket for the celebration of the 
Fourth of July, 1778, and a year later operated 
a fishing boat, with paddle wheels, on the Cono- 
wingo, near his birthplace, whither he seems to 
have returned, from time to time, to visit the 
Swift family. At seventeen Fulton was paint- 
ing portraits and miniatures in his own town and 
in Philadelphia, and quite successfully, as ap- 
pears from some charming miniatures now in 
art galleries and in private hands. Among Ful- 
ton's miniatures are those of Mr. and Mrs. John 
Wilkes Kittera, Margaret and Clementina Ross, 
Samuel Beach, Mrs. David Hayfield Conyng- 
ham, and of his lifelong friend, the Honorable 
Joel Barlow, author of ' ' The Columbiad. ' ' 

Fulton 's stoiy reads like a romance, and yet, 
as Mr. Henderson reminds us, it is a story of 
hard work and great perseverance, as well as of 
the triumphs of genius. At twenty-one Fulton 
had accumulated enough money from his paint- 
ing to buy a house and farm in Washington 
County, Pennsylvania, in which he established 

77 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

his mother and sisters before sailing for Eng- 
land to study under Benjamin West. 

Although quite successful as an artist, Eob- 
ert Fulton was first, last and always an inventor, 
and while in England he spent more than a year 
in Birmingham, where he improved his knowl- 
edge of mechanics in the great workshops of 
that city. Mr. Henderson says that although 
Fulton 's work on the steamboat has been given 
full recognition, perhaps even more than his 
share of credit in this line having been accorded 
him, as his success was the result of a practical 
application of principles discovered by such pre- 
decessors as Newcomen, Watts, Jouffroy and 
Symington abroad, and William Henry and 
John Fitch in Pennsylvania, for some reason 
full recognition has not been given him for his 
work on the submarine, or plunger, as he called 
it. In this plunger he sank vessels on the coast 
of France and on the Thames; it was, in fact, 
the submarine of to-day, less many improve- 
ments made by Mr. Simon Lake and others. It 
should, however, be said to Robert Fulton's 
credit that his vision for the submarme, like that 
of Mr. Lake, was for the protection of our coast. 

In common with many inventors, Fulton pos- 
sessed a statesman-like grasp of public affairs, 
and his most important inventions were planned 
to meet an increasing need among the nations 
of the earth. With prophetic vision, he fore- 

78 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

saw what steam navigation would mean to the 
world, and looking still further into the future, 
he realized that with the increase of commercial 
exchange between the nations there would arise 
sharp competition, rivalries and jealousies, 
which would end in war sooner or later, and that 
with its extended seaboard the United States 
would be greatly in need of some adequate coast 
protection, hence his hopes for his submarine, 
which was designed, as he said, "to place our 
harbours and coast beyond the power of foreign 
insults." Such insults and some casualties hav- 
ing come to our shores in the last years, we 
realize the wisdom and foresight of this Penn- 
sylvania inventor. 

''Rather odd," said Mr. Henderson, after 
speaking of Fulton's dream of his submarine, 
''that someone motoring through Pennsylvania, 
a few years since, should have remarked that 
'nothing had ever been invented in this state.* 
he evidently left Franklin out of the count 
and (Godfrey and Hopkinson, to say nothing of 
Evans, Fitch, Henry and many more." 

"If that remark had been made in Connecti- 
cut or Massachusetts about either of those 
states, the man who made it would have been 
tarred and feathered!" said Kathleen, rousing 
up from a browni study. 

"We are more peaceful in our methods here 
in Pennsylvania, Mrs. Davis, having come of 

6 79 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Quakers, Mennonites, Amisli, Dunkers and other 
non-resisting peoples, and the fact that some 
man made this incorrect statement does not take 
away from the credit of Pennsylvania. ' ' 

''That is a very philosophical way of look- 
ing at it," said Kathleen; ''but I like people to 
have credit for what they do, and your story, 
Mr. Henderson, has given me another reason 
for spreading abroad every good thing that I 
hear about Pennsylvania." 

By this time we had reached Lancaster and 
were motoring around the Square to have an- 
other look at the house where the elder Fulton 
had his tailor shop and where our Pennsylvania 
inventor spent his early years. 

Our next jaunt was to Ephrata and Lititz, 
and as we hoped to include a visit to the mines 
at Cornwall and to some old towns in Lebanon 
County, we set forth in the morning. 

Although the town of Ephrata is sufficiently 
ancient to be interesting, and can still boast some 
of the houses of the original German and Swiss 
settlers, the object of our pilgrimage was 
not the prosperous modern town, with its large 
shops and hotels, but the little old village once 
known as "Kloster" or Dunkerstown. This 
community of Seventh-Day Baptists, on the 
south bank of the Cocalico Creek, the Serpents 
Den of the Delawares, was established about 
1732 by John Conrad Beissel, a baker from 

80 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

Eberbach, Germany. Beissel had embraced the 
doctrines of Alexander Mack, who advocated 
celibacy and the observance of the seventh day 
of the week instead of the first, which latter was 
thedistinguishingfeature of the settlement. The 
village is quaint and interesting, with its small 
frame houses. The Saal and Sisters' House 
are picturesque and individual, and with their 
high-pitched red roofs and small windows, made 
us think of old buildings in Nuremburg and 
other ancient Bavarian towns. Bethania, the 
Brothers' House, has been removed; but we 
were taken through Saron, the Sisters' House, 
and, as it chanced, by a young girl, a fine 
husky specimen. 

*' Fasting has evidently not been her portion 
here below," whispered Kathleen, as our cice- 
rone with difficulty passed sidewise through the 
straight and narrow doorway, only sixteen and 
a half inches wide, the widest being only eighteen 
inches wide. Mr. Henderson was so much 
amused over this performance, and by the con- 
trast between Kathleen's dainty slendemess 
and the young girl's generous proportions that 
he was obliged to beat a hasty retreat to the 
window, where he stood with his back to us gaz- 
ing out upon the landscape. He is really a very 
human sort of Antiquarian, and we shall miss 
him when our journeys tak:e us farther afield; 
at least, I shall miss him; Kathleen is very non- 
si 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

committal on the subject of Mr. Henderson. 
One day she is very gracious to him, and again 
quite the reverse ; but, as our old coachman used 
to say, **Widders is unsartin' like and hard to 
please." Through the little narrow doorway 
we passed into one of the rooms of the sisters ; 
each one had a tiny room, with a narrow wooden 
bench for a bed and a block of wood for a pillow. 
We all exclaimed over the discomfort of such 
a bed, and asked why the sisters were treated 
so badly. * * So they wouldn 't be borne to heaven 
on flowery beds of ease," replied our conduc- 
tress, as if repeating a lesson learned by heart. 

There was no furniture in this small room, 
only a few hooks for clothes and a little wall 
cabinet for a Bible, hymn-book and other per- 
sonal possessions. 

**No flowery beds of ease here," exclaimed 
Kathleen. "It must have been a living death; 
a convent seems luxurious in comparison with 
this, and then there is some romance and beauty 
about the Catholic religion and the life of a 
nun. Were these sisters allowed to marry?" 

Our conductress did not know, and Mr. Hen- 
derson said that the Society did not encourage 
matrimony in early times ; but if any of the mem- 
bers wished to marry, the newly married couple 
was allowed to occupy a cottage for two years, 
no longer, and on leaving the settlement the 
husband and wife were compelled to sign a re- 

82 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

lease of all their interests in the estate, receiv- 
ing for themselves five pounds each. 

Not an encouragement to either matrimony 
or riotous living; but those were days of great 
simplicity, and this was an order in which sim- 
ple living was considered a religious duty. Our 
conductress told us that the brothers and sisters 
went without shoes, except in extremely cold 
weather, ate no meat, and had no fire except in 
the assembly rooms. One of these rooms was 
called the writing room, and was set apart for 
the execution of ornamental pen work, of which 
examples are still to be found on the walls of 
some of the sisters' rooms. The sisters Anas- 
tasia, Iphigenia and Zenobia excelled in this 
ornamental writing. We were glad to think that 
these poor * ' shut-ins ' ' had even this mild amuse- 
ment to vary the monotony of their cheerless 
lives. Mr. Henderson reminded us that music 
was assiduously cultivated, and the singing 
under Beissel, whose monastic name was Father 
Freidsam, drew many visitors to Ephrata at 
one time. 

**I have no doubt that it was very mournful 
music," said Kathleen. 

"Yes, a tourist, in describing it in a letter 
to Governor John Penn, spoke of the small, 
sweet, shrill voices of the women which thrilled 
him to the very soul. This, with their pale faces 
and picturesque white clothing, made these 

83 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

singers appear like ghosts, and lie himself felt 
as if he were in the world of spirits, and the ob- 
jects before him ethereal." 

The members of the conununity had other 
outlets for their energies, for in addition to their 
agricultural pursuits, excellent paper was made 
at Ephrata, and a printmg press was early 
established here. Many of their books, Mr. 
Henderson told us, had been lost; but some fine 
examples are to be found in Philadelphia among 
the treasures of the Historical Society of Penn- 
sylvania, and in Allentown, where there is a 
Martyr Book, a beautiful example of Ephrata 
printing, dated 1748, the largest book printed in 
Pennsylvania up to that time. So much paper- 
making and printing were done here that, before 
the battle of Germantown, three wagon-loads 
of books, in sheets, were pressed and taken away 
for cartridges. In addition to this involuntary 
service, the peace-loving community at Ephrata 
rendered active service to the countiy during 
the Revolution, as one of their buildings was 
turned into a hospital, and here, after the battle 
of Brandywine, over four hundred soldiers were 
cared for by the good sisters. Mr. Rupp says 
that these wounded soldiers were attended by 
Doctors Yerkel, Scott and Harrison,^ and we 
may be sure that they were cared for with great 
tenderness by the good sisters. The arrival of 

^ " History of Lancaster and York Counties," by I. Daniel 
Rupp. 

84 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

these young- soldiers, sad as was the case of 
many of them, must have proved a godsend to 
the sisters, as it brought a new interest into 
their lives and supplied an outlet for the moth- 
erly instinct that is to be found in the heart of 
every good woman. 

We were not tempted to linger long in the 
Sisters' House, for even on this June day there 
was a chill dampness in the rooms, and we were 
glad to leave them and go out into the sunshine 
of the little old graveyard, which, Kathleen said, 
seemed cheerful by comparison, for here, at 
least, the troubles of the good sisters ended. 
Upon the tombstones we found a number of old 
Lancaster County names, and one lot which 
interested us was marked '*For Fahnestock 
Tribe," the Fahnestocks being, like Beissel, the 
Eekerlins, Ludwig Hacker and Peter Miller, in- 
fluential and honored members of the com- 
munity. Peter Miller was a cultivated man and 
so good a linguist that he translated the Dec- 
laration of Independence into seven languages. 
He was well known outside of the community, 
and was visited by David Eittenhouse, Count 
Zinzendorf and other distinguished men, native 
and foreign. This same Peter Miller even had 
a poem dedicated to him by a young Philadel- 
phia poet, which Mr. Henderson read to us as 
we sped away from Ephrata toward Lititz. 
One verse of the rather lengthy effusion 

85 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

appealed to us strongly in which the name- 
less writer exclaimed; 

In Ephrata's deep gloom you fix your seat, 
And seek Religion in the dark retreat; 
In sable weeds you dress the heav'n-bom maid, 
And place her pensive in the lonely shade; 
Recluse, unsocial, you, your hours employ, 
And fearful, banish every harmless joy. 

A somber picture was this of life at Ephrata, 
but at the best it could not have been very cheer- 
ful, and we were glad to speed away to the pleas- 
ant little town of Lititz, where a warm welcome 
awaited us from our friends. After a delightful 
luncheon in the dining-room of Linden Hall, 
which is still called by older residents the Young 
Ladies ' Seminary, we set forth, with our hosts, 
to see the town and learn from them something 
of its history. Our first visit was, of course, to 
the large square on which are the Brethren's 
and Sisters ' Houses, separated by the width of 
the square, with the ancient church between 
them. The Sisters ' House is now a part of the 
Linden Hall Seminary. These fine buildings 
were put up by Glaus Coeller, a master-car- 
penter, who lived to an advanced age and always 
contemplated his work with pride. The parson- 
age, once the Gemeinhaus, is also on this central 
square, which with its green grass and flowers 
adds so much to the beauty of this old-time vil- 
lage, whose founding, we were told, was the 
result of a visit here of Count Nicholas Zinzen- 

86 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

dorf in 1742. The missionary tour in Pennsyl- 
vania of this Saxon nobleman, the patron of the 
renewed church of the United Brethren, or 
Mora vians,is thus spoken of by a local historian: 
''Count Zinzendorf, being persecuted in Sax- 
ony by such as disliked his attempts to form 
Christian communities which were not to be gov- 
erned by the established church government of 
that kingdom, directed his attention and Chris- 
tian eye to Pennsylvania, where at a previous 
period a great number of German Separatists 
had emigrated. ' ' 

Count Zinzendorf, after visiting Bethlehem, 
made a tour through Berks and Lancaster 
Counties, preaching in many places. It is said 
that the object of this journey, which was no 
light undertaking in days when stage-coaches 
and saddle-horses were the only means of trans- 
portation, was for the purpose of drawing to- 
gether under beliefs that he considered vital the 
various religious sects scattered all over this 
part of Pennsylvania. That Count Zinzendorf 
did not meet with signal success in this laud- 
able undertaking may be inferred from the num- 
ber of religious sects still to be found in Lan- 
caster and the adjoining counties. He did, how- 
ever, establish churches in Lancaster and Lititz, 
and around the latter soon grew up Moravian 
schools for girls and boys. That for boys, now 
discontinued, was for many years conducted 

87 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

under the able principalsMp of John Beck, 
father of the distinguished James M. Beck, 
sometime Assistant Attorney-General of the 
United States. 

Early members of the Moravian community 
at Lititz were Christian Alexander Steinman 
and his wife, who emigrated from Dresden, Sax- 
ony, to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and after- 
wards removed to Lititz. Mr. Steinman, who 
was appointed to oversee workmen who were 
to build the saw and grist mill near the town 
in the stream issuing from the great Lititz 
Spring, is the ancestor of the influential Stein- 
man family of Lancaster. The late Mr. Andrew 
J. Steinman, a well-known lawyer and for years 
editor of the Intelligencer, and Mr. George M. 
Steinman, president of the Lancaster County 
Historical Society, were distinguished members 
of this family and honored citizens of Lancaster. 

This community at Lititz, like that at 
Ephrata, turned one of its houses, that of the 
Single Brethren, into a hospital for the recep- 
tion of wounded and ill soldiers during the 
Eevolution. Letters are still preserved among 
the archives which one of the physicians in 
attendance wrote to the good sisters after the 
hospital had removed from Lititz. 

Doctor Brown, writing from the Yellow 
Springs, Pennsylvania, to Sister Betty Langly, 
who had journeyed all the way from Bethlehem 

88 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

to help in the work of nursing the soldiers, said : 
*'I congratulate you and all the members of 
your peaceful society on the prospect we now 
have of the termination of war and bloodshed 
in this country, and that we shall soon be re- 
stored again to that tranquillity and domestic 
paradise which were enjoyed in this country 
in its infancy before it had become considerable 
and wealthy enough to attract the attention or 
excite the avarice or ambition of tyrannical 
princes and oppressive luxurious and corrupted 
ministers of state." 

To Sister Polly Penry, Doctor Brown wrote : 
**I give you joy of having your place restored 
again to its primitive quietness by the removal 
of so heterogeneous and disorderly set of guests 
as our soldiery are to the people of your Society, 
and I hope you will never be disturbed in like 
manner agnin. ' ' ^ Very courteous letters are 
these and doubtless sincere; but I dare say the 
sisters missed these boys upon whom they lav- 
ished their kindness, when the hospital was re- 
moved from Lititz. 

On our way toward Lebanon and the Corn- 
wall mines, we passed through the ancient bor- 
ough of Maiiheim laid out by Henry William 
Stiegel in 1762. Manheim seemed to us rich in 
churches of various denominations, and we 
were not surprised at this when we learned 

* " A Century of Moravian Sisters," by Elizabeth Lehman 
Myers. 

89 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

how generous its proprietor was in giving 
land for religious and philanthropic uses. 
It is said that he gave the lot upon which 
the Evangelical Lutheran Church was built, 
only exacting the picturesque rental of a red 
rose to be paid yearly on demand. This 
custom and also the name of the town was 
brought from older lands. In speaking of this 
foreign custom of the giving of a red rose, in 
lieu of rent, Mrs. M. W. Robinson says that a 
certain John Page, gentleman of Austin Pryors, 
London, having been granted a tract of land in 
the Conestoga by Thomas and Richard Penn, 
empowered his attorneys to sell portions of the 
said tract to several persons for the rental of 
''one red rose to be paid on the 23rd of each 
June, every year and forever." This was in 
1739, forty years before the granting of the 
same privileges by Baron Stiegel. 

Whatever may have been the faults and fail- 
ings of this man in practical affairs, his gener- 
osity was unbounded. In speaking of his brief, 
brilliant career as an ironmaster, Mrs. James 
M. Longacre says: ''He for years supplied his 
simple country neighbors with dazzling 
glimpses of the pride of life ; and it is small won- 
der that they should consider him an amazing 
and marvelous creature, of a kind not usually 
abounding among Pennsylvania Germans. . . . 
Extravagant, kindly and sanguine, Stiegel 's life 

90 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

for some years now was outwardly prosperous, 
and his period of ostentatious living came to its 
height. He provided his German workmen 
with musical instruments, which, with the inborn 
musical talent of the race, they used with skill 
and pleasure. ' ' ^ 

Mr. Henderson related to us one of the many 
stories told about Stiegel, which explains the 
use to which the musical instruments were put 
by the music-loving ironmaster. It is said that 
a watchman was stationed in the cupola on the 
top of his house at the comer of High and 
Prussian Streets, whose business it was to watch 
for the Baron's return from Elizabeth Furnace, 
and when he was seen approaching the town in 
his coach and four to fire a salute. Immedi- 
ately, upon hearing the sound of the cannon, 
the people flocked to tlie house, and a band of 
music, made up from the employes of the fac- 
tory, proceeded to the house-top, and the Baron 
made his entrance into the town amidst the 
firing of cannon, the sound of music and the 
cheers of the inhabitants.* 

Being a conscientious historian, Mr. Hender- 
son does not vouch for the truth of this story 
in all of its picturesque details ; but we hope it 
is true, as it is pleasant to think of this gen- 
erous and kindly man entering the town which 
he had founded in the style and state that he 

* " Forges and Furnaces in the Province of Pennsylvania." 

* Ellis and Evans, " History of Lancaster County," p. 607. 

91 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

enjoyed and to the sound of the music that he 
loved, as misfortunes overtook him early and the 
years of happiness and prosperity were brief 
as they were brilliant. In consequence of 
Stiegel's financial difficulties, he was obliged to 
part with his share of Elizabeth Furnace and 
other properties, the former to Daniel Benezet, 
who afterwards sold it to Robert Coleman. 

Stiegel 's Manheim residence passed through 
various hands, having been bought first by 
Michael Diffenderfer and afterwards by Wil- 
liam Bauseman, James Jenkins and Henry 
Arndt. Baron Stiegel also owned a country 
home at Elizabeth Furnace, which afterwards 
became the residence of Robert Coleman, and it 
was in this house at Elizabeth Furnace that he 
entertained General Washington. 

Soon after leaving Manheim, a beautiful 
gateway leading into spacious and well-wooded 
grounds attracted us, and suddenly realizing 
that we were at the entrance to Mount Hope, 
we turned into the drive and motored up to the 
house under the overarching trees. It was a 
great pleasure to see the old mansion again and 
to be welcomed by its hospitable chatelaine. 
The house was built by Henry Bates Grubb, a 
direct descendant of John Grubb, who came to 
Grubb 's Landing in 1669, and a great-grandson 
of Peter Grubb, who discovered the great iron 
mines at Cornwall. This house, surrounded by 

92 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

many acres, is the country home of the great- 
great-granddaughter of the first Peter Grubb, 
Miss Daisy E. B. Grubb, who loves every stone 
in the old mansion and exercises here its tradi- 
tional hospitality. After a stroll through the 
garden with its famous high boxwood borders, 
and a cheering cup of tea on the porch, we set 
forth again for Lebanon, once called Steitztown, 
after its founder. Some settlements were made 
here as early as 1723 ; but the town was not regu- 
larly laid out until 1759. 

Of the place itself, with its interesting 
churches and other buildings, we had time to 
see little; or of the country surrounding it, in 
which members of the Coleman family have 
their beautiful homes, and after motoring 
through its principal street we sped away to the 
**ore hills," as they are called by many writers 
of the time, a few miles south of Lebanon. Mr. 
Henderson told us that many Hessian prison- 
ers were quartered in the churches of Lebanon, 
and those lodged in the Moravian church found 
themselves particularly well placed, as they 
took possession of the violins belonging to the 
church and alleviated the tedium of their cap- 
tivity with music and dancing. 

On our way to the ore banks we passed by 
the furnaces. The first furnace here was built 
by Peter Grubb, who at the time of his death 
owned over nine thousand acres of land, which 
he left to his sons, Curtis and Peter. On this 

93 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

land are the Cornwall and Hopewell forges and 
the Cornwall ore mines which we saw to-day. 
Huge seams and gashes in the hills revealed the 
places from which the precious ore had been 
taken, and, standing above the ''Robesonia Cut 
and Hoist, ' ' we could see the great depth from 
which the ore had been dug. It was interesting 
to have even this rapid survey of these great 
mines that have added so much to the wealth 
and importance of Pennsylvania. Peter Grubb 
was sole owner of the Cornwall banks until his 
death in 1754, when it became the property of 
his sons Curtis and Peter, and finally the greater 
part passed into the hands of Robert Coleman, 
as did everything in the way of ore and iron 
in this part of the world. In 1798 Mr. Coleman 
owned all of the Cornwall bank, except one-sixth 
part, which Mr. Henry Bates Grubb, a grand- 
son of the first Peter Grubb, still held. Shot, 
shells, cannon and stoves for the Continental 
army were cast at Cornwall furnace by the 
Grubb brothers, who were not only great iron 
masters, but devoted patriots as well. Curtis 
and Peter Grubb were both colonels of militia 
in the Continental army. Robert Coleman 
served in one of the militia battalions, besides 
being a member of the General Assembly of 
1783 and of the convention that framed the 
State Constitution. 

Even this long June day was too short for 
all that we wished to see in this interesting 

94 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

region; but we allowed ourselves a half hour 
for old Donegal, an early Scotch-Irish settle- 
ment and stronghold of Presbyterianism in 
Pennsylvania. I had attended the yearly reun- 
ions of the Donegal Society more than once and 
been entertained at Senator Donald Cameron's 
country place nearby during his lifetime; but 
Kathleen, who had never been here, expressed 
a laudable desire to visit the church and the 
tombs of her ancestors in the old churchyard. 

Fortunately, there had been an afternoon 
meeting, and we were able to enter the old 
sanctuary. Severely plain as it is, inside and 
out, it is in excellent taste, and the propoi-tions 
are good, as is the case in many old churches. 
The simple dignity of these old buildings is 
restful and would be quite destroyed by elab- 
orate ornamentation. We found all the graves 
in the old churchyard well cared for, this being 
one of the good works of the Donegal Society. 
Kathleen shed no tears over the graves of her 
great-great-grands. 

"Why should I weep over themf" she asked, 
"If the old dears were as good as everyone tells 
us they were, they have been happy all these 
years, while their descendants have been toiling 
and moiling in this weary world and having all 
the misery of four or five great wars ! ' ' 

"Mrs. Davis is a philosopher!" exclaimed 
Mr. Henderson. ' ' But she does not look as if she 
found this a very weary world. Come and see 

7 95 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

the Witness Tree, the wonderful old oak under 
whose spreading branches the sons of Donegal 
dedicated their lives to the service of their 
country, early in the war of the Kevolution. It 
is said that nearly every able-bodied man in 
the Donegal church was a soldier in the French 
and Indian wars or in the Eevolutionary War. 
Here is the tablet on which their names 
are recorded. ' ^ 

Standing before the bronze tablet we read 
the name of Kathleen's ancestor. 

''Here are the names of forbears of many 
men and women whom we know or know of," 
said Mr. Henderson, running rapidly over the 
names inscribed upon the tablet. "Here is 
James Stephenson, who lived here in 1770 ; his 
granddaughter, Sarah, married David McKin- 
ley,and their grandson, William McKinley, mar- 
ried Nancy Allison, and it is their son, William, 
who was President of the United States. From 
this same James Stephenson and from the Wat- 
son line a number of noted people have come, 
among them the Hon. Henry P. Fletcher. Gen- 
eral John Pershing, a soldier of whom we are 
all proud, is descended from Captain Andrew 
Boggs, one of the early settlers of Donegal, who 
served in the French and Indian War ; and from 
Hayes ancestry the distinguished Philadelphia 
surgeon. Dr. D. Hayes Agew, is descended. 
The Cameron family also came from Donegal 
pioneers, and Senator Cameron revealed his 

9d 



LANCASTER AND LEBANON TOWNS 

pride in them by calling his country home Done- 
gal. This property belonged to the Stephen- 
sons, but Senator Donald Cameron added many 
acres to the estate and made it the beautiful 
place that it now is. Good stock were these 
Scotch-Irish settlers to come from, God-fearing, 
law-abiding, patriotic men and women! These 
Scotch-Irish ancestors of yours are people to be 
proud of, Mrs. Davis." 

''I dare say; but for some reason I have al- 
ways taken more interest in my English Quaker 
ancestry. Of course, I knew of this Scotch- 
Irish settlement, because my mother often spoke 
of it; but most people talk about the Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch as if they occupied the land to the 
exclusion of everybody else. Since I have been 
in Lancaster County I have heard of enough 
different nationalities and religious denomina- 
tions to make my head spin. " 

''Yes, an English visitor to Lancaster in 
e-arly times said, 'The religions that prevail 
here are hardly to be numbered, ' and this is quite 
true, but to call people Pennsylvania Dutch 
is a misnomer, Mrs. Davis. There are very few 
Dutch here, but no end of Pennsylvania Ger- 
mans; and, after all, the population of Lan- 
caster and the adjoining counties is made up of 
mixed races, like most places in America. To 
the northeast comer of the county a number of 
Welsh settlers came; in the town of Lancaster 
there were a number of English who established 

97 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

their church there, and the Mennonites who 
abound all through this region are many of them 
of Swiss descent, chiefly from Zurich and Berne; 
they, like the Puritans, Quakers and many 
others, left their homes in the old world and 
crossed the ocean for freedom to worship God 
according to the dictates of their own con- 
sciences. These Swiss Mennonites are said to 
be the first white settlers in Lancaster County, 
and in 1910 a very interesting commemoration 
was held to celebrate the two hundredth anni- 
versary of their settlement. A nine-ton boulder 
was placed in front of the old Mennonite church- 
yard near Willow Street, Lancaster, and ser- 
vices were held there. At the ceremony of the 
unveiling of the boulder and tablet, addresses 
were made by Hon. John H. Landis, Professor 
Oscar Kuhns, Hon. Amos H. Mylin, Mr. John A. 
Coyle and other descendants of the Mennonite 
settlers. Mr. H. Frank Eshleman and Mr. Dif- 
fenderffer, the chairman, and some of the other 
speakers emphasized the fact that these early 
settlers were tolerant and wished all other re- 
ligious people to enjoy the liberty in worship 
that they had found in the new world. ' ' 

Being mounted on his hobby, our Antiquary 
cantered along gaily until we had passed through 
Landisville, and the twinkling lights before 
us showed us that we were near Lancaster and 
the end of our interesting day among antiquities. 



V 

TO GETTYSBURG BY WAY OF COLUMBIA 

AND YORK 

On our way to Columbia we stopped 
at Wheatland, the old home of President 
Buchanan, a comfortable, spacious house, sur- 
rounded by a lawn filled with fine trees. This 
house, with its wide, hospitable doorway and 
long, low facade equipped with many windows, 
was once owned by Mr. Potter and afterwards 
was the summer home of the Hon. William M. 
Meredith, of Philadelphia, who sold it to Mr. 
Buchanan in 1848. As we stood on the portico 
at the entrance and looked out on the lawn, with 
its many oaks, larches and evergreens, or at the 
end of the broad hall enjoyed the charming 
view of woodlands and a fertile valley beyond, 
we realized what an ideal home this was for a 
statesman to retire to when the cares of office 
were over. At the end of Mr. Buchanan 's term 
of office as President of the United States he 
came back to this delightful home, escorted by 
some of his friends, prominent citizens of Lan- 
caster, among them the Hon. Hugh M. North and 
W. U. Hensel, Esq. To these gentlemen Mr. 
Buchanan expressed his gratification over this 
evidence of their regard and at the same time 

99 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

spoke of his great pleasure at returning to his 
home near Lancaster. 

From Wheatland, a few years later, Mr. 
Buchanan's niece, Miss Harriet Lane, went forth 
as the bride of Mr. Henry E. Johnston, of Balti- 
more. The devoted uncle's expressions to his 
niece on the subject of her approaching mar- 
riage are so affectionate and yet so formal and 
old-fashioned that we were glad to be reminded 
of them by our Antiquary, who always has some 
interesting sidelight to throw upon whatever 
subject may interest us. In writing to Miss 
Lane a short time before her marriage, Mr. 
Buchanan said: **You have now made your un- 
biased choice, and from the character of Mr. 
Johnston I anticipate for you a happy marriage, 
because I believe, from your own good sense, 
you will conform to your conductor and make 
him a good and loving wife." Mrs. Johnston 
never came back to Wheatland, except for a 
visit. She spent the last years of her life in 
Washington, where she gathered about her 
many friends, old and new. Those who met Mrs. 
Johnston in Washington in those years recall 
her great charm of manner and her distin- 
guished beauty, and this after she had passed 
the fateful milestone of three score and ten. 

One thing that impressed us especially at 
Wheatland was the care the present owner, Mr. 
George Wilson, has taken to keep the house 
much as it was during the residence there of the 

100 



GETTYSBURG VIA COLUMBIA AND YORK 

ex-President. Many pieces of furniture which 
belonged to him are still in the rooms and 
naturally add much to the interest of a visit 
to this old house. 

Quite near Wheatland is Abbeyrille, once 
the summer home of the Hon. Langdon Cheves, 
of South Carolma, who was a member of Con- 
gress for years and sometime Speaker of the 
House of Representatives. A charming house, 
this seemed to us, as we saw it on a summer day, 
the doors and windows open and the perfume 
of the shrubbery in lawn and garden filling the 
air with fragrance. We were warmly welcomed 
by the daughter of Mr. John W. Apple, the 
present owner of the house, who told us 
that the wings had been added by Judge 
Cheves and also the fine arches and beautiful 
carved woodwork. 

Mr. Buchanan was not only an associate of 
Judge Cheves in political life, but also a friendly 
neighbor and frequent visitor at Abbeyville. 
For lovely Mrs. Cheves, Mr. Buchanan enter- 
tained a warm admiration and was fond of 
relating a pleasant story of her as she appeared 
at her own dinner-table. Mrs. Cheves, charm- 
ingly attired, was one day entertaining some 
distinguished guests when the waiter, in passing 
around the soup-tureen after the good old style 
before dinners a la Russe were in vogue, awk- 
wardly overturned the contents upon the deli- 
cate brocade gown of the hostess. Mr. Buchanan 

101 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

said that not only did Mrs. Cheves utter no 
expression of surprise or anger, but without a 
word upon the subject she continued the con- 
versation in which she was engaged. 

The Lincoln Highway from Lancaster fol- 
lows the route of the old road to Columbia, 
and one charming feature of this highway is 
that the trolleys take the same route, which 
makes this picturesque tour free to those who 
have no motorcars and are destitute of inti- 
mate friends who own them, which is really the 
most convenient method of seeing the country. 
On this Jmie day the road was bounded on both 
sides by great fields of clover, fragrant with 
their pink blossoms, and shaded by locust trees 
shedding their white flowers, which still gave 
out a sweet perfume, and beyond the clover we 
could see vast fields of wheat yellowing in the 
warm sunshine; we did not wonder that Lan- 
caster County was called a garden spot and that 
two of its townships were named Paradise and 
Eden. It must have been on such a day as this 
that Lloyd Mifflin, one of the sweetest poets of 
Pennsylvania, wrote his "In the Fields": 

When daily greener grows the oats; 

When near his nest the red-wing floats, 

And sweetbrier blossoms in the lane; 

When freshening- wind tlie wheat-field shakes, 

And in its billowy rolling makes 

An ocean of the grain : 



102 



GETTYSBURG VIA COLUMBIA AND YORK 

When wading cows in cool mid-stream, 
Stand by the hour in some dull dream 
Of meadows deep with clover-blooms; 
When all the knolls are gold of hue, 
When all the silences of blue 
Are hea\'y with perfumes: 

''You know, of course, that Mr. Mifflin's 
home, Norwood, is quite near Columbia," said 
Mr. Henderson, "on the Chestnut Hill road — 
a fine old place. I wish we had time to 
stop; but if we are to reach Gettysburg 
before night we shall have to pass by many in- 
teresting places." 

Instead of the proverbial red barns, out of all 
proportion, to the tiny houses to which they 
belong, we noticed a yellow barn now and again 
and occasionally one painted in gray or laven- 
der, which proves that these thrifty farming 
people have an eye for beauty and har- 
monious coloring. 

"Yes, they may occasionally indulge them- 
selves in some fancy in the way of color," said 
Mr. Henderson, "like the blue gate that the 
Mennonites delight in; but these people are 
thrifty, first, last and always, and the best 
farmers in the world ; they have made whatever 
place they have settled in blossom like the rose 
of the Scriptures. I was talking to a Mennonite 
from Russia the other day. He told me that at 
one time a number of his people were encour- 
aged to trek from Switzerland to Russia, be- 

103 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

cause of their great ability as fanners ; the yield 
of wheat to the acre under their management 
is almost incredible. In proof of their value 
as agriculturists they were never required to 
serve in the Russian army, which suited them 
very well, as the Mennonites are as much op- 
posed to war as your Quaker ancestors, Mrs. 
Davis, and far less reasonable." 

''I am glad that you give my Quaker people 
the credit of reasonableness. They have little 
patience shown them in war times, and yet the 
Friends are doing great work in France in run- 
ning ambulances and in helping to restore the 
devastated farms and villages." 

**Yes, I know, but warlike measures over- 
shadow everything else; the Friends will do 
even greater work when we get the Huns out 
of all the French and Belgian towns. ' ' 

"What does Mr. Henderson mean by that 
we?" I asked myself, but as we were just then 
entering Columbia nothing more was said. 

Columbia, once ''Shawanah, Indian Town," 
and later Wright's Ferry, is beautifully situ- 
ated on the Susquehanna, and although now a 
flourishing borough with fine houses and several 
important industries, it still retains some of its 
quaint village characteristics. The Wrights, 
Barbers, Scarletts and Blunstons were among 
the original land owners and settlers. Upon 
John Wright's arrival here he found a Shaw- 

104 



GETTYSBURG VIA COLUMBIA AND YORK 

nese village near the stream of the same 
name. This Jolm Wright, the settler, was for 
years a member of the Assembly of Chester 
County, which then included Lancaster County. 
He was, however, so strong a Quaker that he 
refused to take the oath of ofifice and simply 
affirmed. Many stories are told of this clever 
and somewhat eccentric character, but for sev- 
eral reasons we were more interested in his 
daughter Susannah, whose letters to James 
Logan and other leading men of the day we had 
seen, and had rejoiced in the fact that even in 
that early time, when women were expected to 
take their opinions ready-made from the other 
sex, this little Quaker lady was able to hold her 
own with the best of them. Living on this river 
bank, remote from the larger centers of interest, 
this animated correspondence must have been 
a great pleasure to an intelligent woman like 
Miss Wright, who was also cultured above most 
women of her day. Mrs. Deborah Logan, in her 
brief biography of Susannah Wright, speaks 
of her as a French scholar and having some 
knowledge of Latin and Italian. That she bor- 
rowed French books from the Stenton library 
is evident, as James Logan takes her to task 
quite sharply in one of his letters for her delay 
in returning some of these volumes : 

My daughter is hard at her french under a Master & has 
occasion for f ontanelle & fenelon or Arb'p Cambray. Pray 
let others learn also. "Where is Vaugelas? 

105 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

That the writer entertained no serious 
grudge against his young friend for this neglect 
appears from, another paragraph in the same 
letter, in which he chides her for failure to make 
a promised visit to Stenton : 

I shall take no excuse whatsoever, downright sickness 
excepted, but shall interpret all others that can be offer'd 
as a direct declaration that thou art absolutely determined 
to renounce for Hempfield all the rest of the World, and 
among-st others, one who has ever since his acquaintance 
with thee been most strongly inclined to show himelf 
thy sincere and affectionate frd, 

J. LOGAN.^ 

We were fortunate in meeting my friend, 
Miss E , who lives in Columbia, and learn- 
ing of our interest in Susannah Wright, she of- 
fered to take us to her old home. Leaving the 
chauffeur in charge of the car, we made our way 
on foot by a street with high factory buildings, 
which seem quite out of place in this old town, 
to Second Street, where are the fine old Wright 
mansions. The one in which we were especially 
interested is Hempfield, built in 1726. Although 
despoiled of its extensive lawn, which sloped 
down to the Susquehanna, this house has been 
little changed otherwise and so retains much of 
its old-time charm. Here Susannah Wright 
lived for many years. From Hempfield we were 
taken to see another house which is associated 
with Susannah. This house, which has a won- 

* Publications of the Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial 
Dames of America, 1906. 

106 



GETTYSBURG VIA COLUMBIA AND YORK 

derful situation on a high bluff above the river, 
commanding a wide sweep of the waters north 
and south, was built by Samuel Blunston, one 
of the pioneers here, and Mr. Henderson tells 
us that he was a suitor for the hand of Susan- 
nah, who refused him several times, upon which 
he, amiable and most forgiving of suitors, ended 
by leaving his house and lands to the unrequit- 
ing lady, or, as he expressed it more discreetly 
in his will: "to my valued friend, Susannah 
Wright, a life interest in my lands at this place. ' ' 
A bit of romance always adds to the charm of 
an old mansion, and as we passed from room 
to room we wondered why this little Quaker 
lady had chosen for herself a state of single 
blessedness, that estate not being greatly in 
repute in Colonial days when the conditions 
of pioneer life made it seem important for every 
woman to have a protector. 

''Would that all suitors were as generous 
and forgiving as Mr. Samuel Blunston!" ex- 
claimed Kathleen with emphasis, to which Mr. 
Henderson, with as severe an expression as his 
amiable face was capable of assuming, replied : 
"And don't you think that Miss Susannah 
Wright must have felt some sharp twinges of 
remorse while enjoying Samuel Blunston 's 
house and farm after refusing to live here 
with him?" 

Miss E was very much amused at this 

107 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

view of the situation and said that Susannah 
Wright had never lived in this house, although 
she had an office here and on certain days in 
the week was in the habit of prescribing for the 
sick people in the community. The office was in 
the old part of the house, which has been con- 
siderably enlarged since the days of Sam- 
uel Blunston. 

Columbia has several claims to distinction, 
notably the fact that, as Wright's Ferry, it was 
seriously considered as a possible site for the 
National Capital, in common with Harrisburg, 
Lancaster, York and Germantown. That a 
town in Pennsylvania which state had been 
the scene of so many important events during 
the Revolution was not chosen for the seat of 
the National Capital was a surprise to many 
of its citizens. If Columbia failed in its 
ambition to be made the capital of the United 
States, it gained distinction in a quite dif- 
ferent line, for here was established the first 
underground railroad, over wliich William 
Wright helped many slaves to make their 
escape. William Wright, a descendant of the 
first John Wright, who laid out the town, is said 
to have been an active, intelligent man of great 
presence of mind and having thorough knowl- 
edge of the laws pertaining to slavery. He 
passed the fugitives on to the next important 
station, which was that of Daniel Gibbons, where 

108 



GETTYSBURG VIA COLUMBIA AND YORK 

he and his wife, Hannah Wierman Gibbons, 
helped them in their turn. Upon one occasion 
this valiant woman for six long weeks nursed 
back to health a poor ignorant runaway slave 
who had developed smallpox. Hannah Gibbons 
and her husband were both elders in the Society 
of Friends and, like all abolitionists, were deeply 
interested in the election of Mr, Lincoln. When 
near death, in the autumn of 1860, she roused 
herself from the stupor into which she had 
fallen to ask if Abraham Lincoln had been 
elected President of the United States. This 
was only three weeks before the election of Mr. 
Lincoln, but this devoted friend of the slave did 
not live to see the fulfilment of her hopes. 

Among those who aided William Wright and 
the Gibbons family in their effort to help run- 
away slaves were Oliver Furness, Christian 
Frantz, a Mennonite; Dr. J. K. Eshleman, 
Joshua Brinton and Lindley Coates, who, with 
his wife Deborah, often hid the fugitives in his 
cornfield under the shocks.^ 

As we crossed the Susquehanna over the won- 
derful long bridge, the successor of several long 
bridges, and looked upon the wide sweep of the 
shining river and its picturesque banks, we did 
not wonder that this town should have im- 
pressed many of the members of Congress as 
a good site for the capital, contrasting favorably 

* " The Underground Railroad," by Mrs. M. C. Brubaker. 
109 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

as it did with the unimproved tract of marsh and 
forest land upon the Potomac where the beau- 
tiful city of Washington now stands. Those 
Congressmen, John Hancock, John Adams and 
the others, had a good opportunity to study the 
landscape in September, 1777, as they crossed 
the Susquehanna on flatboats on their way 
to York. 

On the other side of the Susquehanna we 
passed through a second Wright's Ferry, 
now Wrightsville. 

On the right-hand side of the Lincoln High- 
way, near the town of York, we were attracted 
by an old building with this appropriate sign, 
" Ye Olde Valley Inn, "for here the valley widens 
in a great reach of beautiful, fertile country 
enclosed in a frame of distant blue mountains. 
The site of York, or Yorktown, as it was called 
for years, on Codorus Creek, seems to have been 
chosen by that very able surveyor, Thomas 
Cookson, who located so many towns on prop- 
erty belonging to the Penns, and, very naturally, 
it was laid out on the plan of Philadelphia, hav- 
ing its Market Street and its central square, 
which, being more fortunate than that city, it 
still possesses. As we motored through this 
attractive central square by the new Court 
House, handsome high-school buildings and 
many fine churches, all Mr. Henderson's elo- 
quence was needed to remind us that York was a 

110 



GETTYSBURG VIA COLUMBIA AND YORK 

very old town, having been the first town to be 
laid out west of the Susquehanna, and that not- 
withstanding the old York is overshadowed by 
the new and prosperous town, its citizens took 
great pride in celebrating its one hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary in 1891. Unfortunately, the 
civic pride of the people of York did not wake 
up early enough to save the old Court House 
where the Continental Congress met in the win- 
ter of 1777 and '78, although some wise citi- 
zens secured the old bell that pealed forth the 
news of the signing of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and placed it in the cupola of St. 
John 's Church. It was during the dark days of 
the memorable winter and spring of 1778 that 
the cheering news of Burgoyne's defeat at 
Saratoga and of the signing of the treaty with 
France reached York by way of Wright 's Ferry. 
Upon the receipt of this last good news in May, 
the bell of the old Court House rang forth a 
joyous peal, which was echoed, with still greater 
joy, when on June 20th tidings came to this 
patriotic town that the British had evacu- 
ated Philadelphia. 

As we passed through the square, a courte- 
ous citizen drew our attention to a bronze tablet 
on which was recorded the fact that Congress 
had met here during the Revolution, and the 
same person pointed out to us with pride the 
Court House of 1842. We were, I fear, very 

8 111 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

unappreciative of the charms of this building, 
as we turned away from it still deploring the 
fact that the priceless old structure, which had 
resounded to the voices of the Fathers of the 
Republic, had been torn down, and refusing to 
be comforted by the statement that the present 
building had cost a hundred thousand dollars, 
a great sum in 1842 ! 

Mr. Henderson tactfully remarked that York 
could claim at least one Signer of the Declara- 
tion, James Smith, an Irish lawyer, one of the 
f ramers of the State Constitution and an ardent 
patriot, who sacrificed his business interests in 
order to serve his adopted country. This trib- 
ute to the importance of his native town so 
pleased our self -constituted guide that he of- 
fered to show us other places of interest in 
York, among them the fine park which occupies 
the site of a general hospital for ill and wounded 
soldiers, which was maintained from 1862 until 
the close of the war. This genial and public- 
spirited citizen also urged us to take time to 
motor through the grounds of Highland Park, 
farther north on the Codorus, and ended by giv- 
ing us much needed information about a tea- 
house where we could find some luncheon, so 
our acquaintance which began in a discussion 
of antiquities ended with the less elevating but 
generally popular topic of food. 

It was a thrilling experience to be in Gettys- 

112 



GETTYSBURG VIA COLUMBIA AND YORK 

burg this first year of our war, and at night ; we 
motored all around the encampment by moon- 
light, and seeing camp fires, or perhaps they 
were only electric lights, in the long lines of 
tents, we thought of the two great encampments 
near this old town fifty-four years since. The 
Union army was on Cemetery Hill, the Confed- 
erate only a little over a mile south, each one 
able to see the lights of the enemy's camp; and 
now the sons and grandsons of those soldiers of 
1863 are met together under these khaki tents, 
brothers in arms, united in support of a 
great cause. 

Some such thoughts as these floated through 
my mind when, as if to humor my mood, Kath- 
leen sang softly : 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling 

camps; 
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and 

damps ; 
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaming 

lamps; 

''I should think the boys would be singing 
that, or 'America,' instead of such songs as 
'The Old Gray Mare' and 'Nancy Lee,' that I 
heard them singing when I went over to see my 
nephew Billy, but boys will be boys, and it may 
hearten them a bit to sing lively, catchy tunes. 
Camp life is monotonous enough, so far from 
the scene of action; the days are pretty 
much alike." 

113 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Upon this Kathleen started in with : 

They were summoned from the hillside, 
They were called in from the glen, 

And the country found them ready 
At the stirring call for men 

when a rousing chorus of boyish voices rang out 
in ''Keep the Home Fires Burning." We were 
quite near the tents just then, and the young 
voices sounded fresh and sweet as they were 
borne to us on the still night air and infinitely 
pathetic as we thought of the experiences that 
awaited them in strange lands and of the fate 
that might be theirs. 

**You have touched the right chord," said 
Mr. Henderson; ''they seem to like that 
cheery song. ' ' 

"I wish," said Kathleen in her impulsive 
fashion, "that I could meet every one of those 
boys and tell them all how much I honor them 
for what they are doing and give each one some- 
thing to remember me by. ' ' 

"If they should be so happy as to meet you, 
they could never fail to remember you," said 
Mr. Henderson in a low tone, but not so low 
that I failed to hear, and then he added some- 
thing that I did not catch, he being on the front 
seat on Kathleen's side of the car; but whatever 
it was it had the effect of making her silent and 
thoughtful for the rest of the drive. 

What did it all mean? I asked myself. 

114 



GETTYSBURG VIA COLUMBIA AND YORK 

Is Mr. Henderson in love with my Kathleen, 
and is he telling her that he is going over to 
France himself? Again I asked myself these 
questions when, at the entrance to the hotel, 
our escort proposed a moonlight stroll about 
the town. I naturally excused myself on the 
plea of being too tired to take another step, 
although the streets did look attractive by the 
light of the moon, and I was not so very tired; 
but who would spoil sport, and on such a night 
as this? 

When Kathleen stopped at my door a full 
hour later to say good-night, her eyes looked 
rather dewy, and she kissed me with more 
than usual warmth. And then, despite the many 
thoughts about past, present and future that 
this evening near the old camp ground had 
stirred, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, 
only to be awakened by the morning sunshine 
streaming into the room with its promise of an- 
other glorious June day in the open. 

A turn through the town on our way to the 
battle-field by the Lutheran Theological Semi- 
nary, the Pennsylvania State College and other 
public buildings revealed the fact that Gettys- 
burg had changed very little in the years since 
those July days in '63 which made it famous. 
One of our party, it is needless to say which one, 
was here not very long after the battle, when 
gruesome signs of the f rightfulness of war were 
still in evidence. 

116 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

General Lee started on his northward march 
with his entire army early in July. Swell's 
corps was in Chambersburg by the fifteenth of 
the month, and what a day the twentieth must 
have been to the people of this old town when 
Jenkins' cavalry clattered through the streets, 
soon to be joined by General Early himself. 
To the credit of this officer, it should be said 
that he issued a proclamation assuring the in- 
habitants of Gettysburg that they would not be 
molested by his troops, and to them he gave 
strict orders to respect the property of the citi- 
zens. A story recurred to me that was told us 
years ago, when there were many persons living 
in Gettysburg who vividly recalled the entrance 
of the Confederate troops. These men, tired, 
travel-stained and hungry, lay down to rest 
upon the sidewalk and in the streets with their, 
knapsacks under their heads. When spoken to 
and offered food and drink by kind-hearted citi- 
zens they invariably refused, and when urged 
to give the reason of their refusal, the almost 
invariable answer was, *'I must obey orders." 
These poor boys, refusing food and drink, 
brought before us suddenly the human side of 
this great conflict, a side which is often over- 
shadowed by the broader issues at stake. Other 
human associations with these fateful days of 
July, 1863, we found in the plain little frame 
house with its picket fence in which General 

116 



GETTYSBURG VIA COLUMBIA AND YORK 

Meade met his staff and planned the battle of 
Gettysburg and in the small but more substan- 
tial stone house in which General Lee had his 
headquarters, simple little houses in which two 
great generals were lodged, in striking contrast 
to [the luxurious and well-protected lodgings 
that we read of as the headquarters of the Ger- 
man Kaiser and his sons. 

We made our way to Round Top, from which 
we could see the stretch of level ground, over 
which Pickett's Division swept when they made 
their ill-fated charge, the most impressive spot 
on the whole battle-field, it has always seemed 
to me. Mr. Henderson, who had been there 
on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the 
battle, told us of many human touches brought 
out by the meeting of the veterans of 1863 on the 
field over which both sides had fought so furi- 
ously a half a century before. The most mem- 
orable scene perhaps was the meeting here be- 
tween the survivors of the Philadelphia Bri- 
gade and of Pickett's Division, when they 
clasped hands like brothers, while Old Glory 
waved over the two slender lines of the Blue 
and the Gray. We thought of the prophetic 
words of the great seer and leader, who spoke 
here in the November after the battle, and of 
how he would have rejoiced that the foes of 
half a century before should meet again on the 
old battle-ground and dedicate the remainder 

117 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

of their lives to a united country then at peace. 
Mr. Henderson reminds us that in only one 
prophecy did Mr. Lincoln's clear vision fail, and 
that was when he said: ''The world will little 
note nor long remember what we say here, but 
it can never forget what they did here." For 
over half a century the battle of Gettysburg has 
never failed to call to the minds of Americans 
the words spoken here on that November day, 
words that have become a part of the literature 
of the people, and will so continue for all time. 



VI 
CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

The tour of twenty-five miles between Get- 
tysburg and Chambersburg was a delight, as 
the road led us over successive ridges of the 
South Mountain and by woods filled with bloom- 
ing laurel, the little dainty blossoms that look 
like the printed flowers on chintz. In this South 
Mountain were several charcoal furnaces; just 
over the line, in Franklin County, was Cale- 
donia, now Caledonia Park. The old furnace 
and forge on the Conococheague, ten miles 
southeast of Chambersburg, now on the Lincoln 
Highway, were owned and operated for years 
by Thaddeus Stevens and James D. Paxton, 
the latter known among the iron fraternity as 
Colonel Paxton. Both furnace and forge were 
burned by the Confederate troops, nothing being 
left of the works except the office building and 
the old smithy, which is now the trolley station. 

There is an extensive state park at Cale- 
donia, as this is one of the three divisions of the 
South Mountain State Forest. The other two 
are Pine Grove, to the north, and Mont Alto, 
to the south. All of them are old-time iron 
estates and now are included in the vast tract 
of hundreds of thousands of acres set apart 

119 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

and to remain for all time in the State Forest 
Eeservation of Pennsylvania. This wise and 
important legislation is largely due to the efforts 
of Governor Pennypacker, who was ui'ged by 
Dr. J. S. Rothrock, Miss Myra Dock and other 
public-spirited citizens to use his influence to 
preserve the forest lands of Pennsylvania be- 
fore encroaching business and manufactories 
had destroyed what could not be replaced in 
hundreds of years. A most appropriate celebra- 
tion was held at Caledonia Park on a recent 
birthday of our distinguished Commissioner of 
Forestry, Doctor Rothrock, when a white oak 
tree was planted for every year of his long and 
useful life. 

There is very little left of old Chambers- 
burg to-day, but when we entered the town on 
this June afternoon and motored through its 
streets by the Lincoln Highway and Philadel- 
phia Avenue, in both of which are many hand- 
some residences, with fine gardens all abloom, 
we could not regret the destruction of 1864 as 
keenly as did its inliabitants of that time, so 
beautiful is the new Chambersburg that has 
arisen from the ashes of the old town. 

No northern town suffered at the hands of 
the Confederate troops as much as Chambers- 
burg. Greencastle, Carlisle, York, Wrightsville 
and other Pennsylvania towns were invaded, but 
the fine old town of Chambersburg, near the 

120 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

Maryland border, proved a shining mark and 
consequently was invaded several times and 
twice set on fire. The last invasion, that of 
July, 1864, was the most disastrous, as the 
greater part of the town was burned to the 
ground, all of the old houses and many hand- 
some modem residences and public buildings; 
having been destroyed. The old house of the 
settler and his family has long since disap- 
peared, but the town which bears his name and 
the church for which he gave the land are the 
enduring monuments of Benjamin Chambers, 
founder of Chambersburg. 

From County Antrim, Ireland, Benjamin 
Chambers came to Cumberland County about 
1730, being the first white settler in Franklin 
County. Having the world before him where 
to choose, he selected for the site of a town, 
saw mill and church the most desirable position, 
at the confluence of the Falling Spring and the 
Conococheague creeks, where Chambersburg is 
now situated. 

*' Having procured a title to as much land 
as he desired, he proceeded to erect a log house, 
covered with lapped shingles and fastened by 
nails, a style of building out of the coimnon 
mode of round logs and clapboard roofs secured 
by beams. Some time after being induced to 
visit the east side of the Susquehanna, he left 
his house unoccupied for a short time and oa 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIACTOWNS 

his return found it burned to ashes. This was 
afterwards ascertained to be the work of an un- 
principled hunter, who was induced to do it for 
the sake of the nails, which at that day, in this 
wild region, were esteemed no ordinaiy prize. ' ' 

To the credit of Colonel Benjamin Cham- 
bers, it may be said that he maintained friendly 
intercourse with the Indians of this region, with 
whom he traded and so impressed them with his 
fairness in dealing with them that he won their 
confidence and respect. 

''When, however," says Doctor Nevin, "the 
western Indians, after Braddock's defeat in 
1755, became troublesome and made incursions 
east of the mountains, killing and making pris- 
oners of many of the white inhabitants, Colonel 
Chambers, for the security of his family and 
neighbors, found it necessary to erect, where 
the borough of Chambersburg now is, a large 
stone dwelling house, surrounded by the water 
from Falling Spring. The dwelling house, for 
greater security against the attempts of the 
Indians to fire it, was roofed with lead. The 
dwellings and the mills were surrounded by a 
stockade fort. This fort, with the aid of fire- 
arms, a blunderbuss and swivel, was so formid- 
able to the Indian parties who passed the 
country that it was but seldom assailed, and no 
one sheltered by it was killed or wounded, al- 
though in the country around, at different times, 

122 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

those who ventured out on their farms were 
surprised and either slaughtered or carried off 
prisoners, with all the horrors and aggravations 
of savage warfare." ^ 

Although settled in 1730, the town was not 
regularly laid out until 1764; prior to that date 
it was called *' Falling Spring" and "Cham- 
bers ' Fort ' ' and ^ ' Chambers ' Town. ' ' The lat- 
ter name it held till the erection of Franklin 
County in 1784, when the present name, Cham- 
bersburg, was adopted. 

*'One may form some little idea of the wild 
state of the country when Chambersburg was 
first settled," says an ancient chronicler, ''from 
the fact that, about 1785, immediately back from 
Radebaugh's tavern stand it was a wilderness, 
so thickly overgrown that it was not safe for 
anyone unacquainted to enter into it any dis- 
tance for fear of being lost. It was no un- 
common thing to hear wolves near the town 
howl. This we have from one of the early set- 
tlers." These settlers of Chambersburg and 
indeed of the greater part of the Cumberland 
Valley were Scotch-Irish, hardy and industri- 
ous and not easily discouraged by the dangers 
and difficulties of pioneer life. They were also 
a religious people, Presbyterians of a deeper, 
darker blue than are to be found in any of the 
churches of that denomination to-day. In mak- 

^"Men of Mark of Cumberland Valley, 1776-1876," by 
Alfred Nevin, D.D, 

123 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

ing over to the Presbyterians the land for the 
Falling Spring Church, Colonel Chambers, in his 
deed of 1768, donated it to *Hhe religious so- 
ciety, then and thereafter adhering to the West- 
minster Confession of Faith, and the mode of 
government therein contained, and for the pur- 
pose of a house of worship, session and school 
houses and cemetery." 

Mr. Henderson pointed out to us the present 
Falling Spring church on Philadelphia Avenue, 
near which he said the first log cabin of Colonel 
Chambers was situated, and his later strongly- 
fortified house, called Chambers ' Fort. In later 
years, Colonel Chambers built another house, 
using some of the stones from the old ''fort," 
but not on the same site. This house was given 
to his daughter Ruhamah, who married Dr. 
John Calhoun, the first resident physician in 
Chambersburg. Doctor Calhoun was an ardent 
patriot as well as a noted physician, being ap- 
pointed a member of the Cumberland County 
Committee of Observation and also a delegate 
to the Congress of 1774 in Carpenter's Hall. 
Doctor and Mrs. Calhoun lived in this house for 
many years. It is now occupied by a descend- 
ant of Colonel Chambers, William Cham- 
bers Mahaffey. 

On the Lincoln Highway, which runs directly 
through the town, we noticed a handsome house 
standing quite high above the street, surrounded 

12^ 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

by fine trees, with a beautiful garden at the 
side and back. This mansion, now the resi- 
dence of Mr. and Mrs. Nevin Pomeroy, was built 
by Mrs. Pomeroy 's father, Mr. William McLel- 
land, a well-known lawyer of Chambersburg, 
more than seventy years since. The preserva- 
tion of this house from the general destruction 
of July, 1864, is said to have been due to the 
courage and presence of mind of Mrs. McLel- 
land, who met the oflScer in command at the door 
and, pointing to the unhappy women and chil- 
dren who had been driven from their homes 
by the flames, said: '*We have a home and can 
get another, but can you not spare these poor, 
helpless people and their children ? ' ' The officer 
turned away without making any reply, but he 
ordered his command to move on, and that part 
of the town was saved from destruction. 

In common with Lancaster, Belief onte, Car- 
lisle and other old Pennsylvania towns, Cham- 
bersburg had clearly-defined social lines, an 
aristocracy in the very best sense of the word, 
as it was composed of men and women of refine- 
ment and culture and to be able to claim descent 
from an early settler was distinctly in one's 
favor. Among the old residents, those who 
drove their own coaches, made yearly or half- 
yearly visits to Harrisburg or Philadelphia, the 
latter city being the center of social life and the 
arbiter of fashion, having constant communica- 

125 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

tion with London and Paris. The ladies of the 
family often made these long journeys with their 
husbands and fathers, taking advantage of this 
opportunity to renew their friendships in other 
cities and to acquaint themselves with the latest 
styles. We can well imagine the excitement and 
interest with which those who had been in 
touch with the larger world were received in 
their own town, and with what eagerness the 
ladies of the party were questioned as to 
the newest fashions in hats, cloaks and other 
feminine gear. 

One of the fortunate damsels who visited 
Philadelphia in 1795 was Miss Charlotte Cham- 
bers, a daughter of General James Chambers 
and a granddaughter of the founder of Cham- 
bersburg. In writing of her presentation at 
Mrs. Washington's drawing-room. Miss Cham- 
bers thus describes her own costume : ' ' On this 
evening my dress was white brocade silk, 
trimmed with silver, and white silk, high-heeled 
shoes, embroidered with silver, and a light blue 
sash, with silver cord and tassel tied at the left 
side. My watch was suspended at the right 
and my hair was in its natural curls. Surmount- 
ing all was a small white hat and ostrich 
feather, confined by brilliant band and buckle. ' ' 

A far cry was this from the early days of 
the settlement and the log cabin of the young 
lady's grandfather, and yet all this luxury and 

126 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

elegance had come about in less than seventy 
years ! That Miss Chambers was as well bred 
as she was well dressed appears from her de- 
scription of the ceremony of the presentation 
and her own part in it : 

' ' Mrs. Washington with Mrs. Knox sat near 
the fireplace. Other ladies were seated on sofas, 
and gentlemen stood in the center of the room 
conversing. On our approach, Mrs. Washington 
rose and made a curtsy — the gentlemen bowed 
most profoundly — and I calculated my declen- 
sion to her own with critical exactness. 

''The President, soon after, with that be- 
nignity peculiarly his own, advanced, and I 
arose to receive his compliments with the respect 
and love my heart dictated. 

''He seated himself beside me — and inquired 
for my father, a severe cold having detained 
him at home. ' ' 

General Chambers was naturally well known 
to the President, having been an officer in the 
Pennsylvania line. This very observing and 
intelligent young lady was married the next 
year to Israel Ludlow and with him became a 
pioneer in the settlement of Ohio, in which state 
many of her descendants still live. 

Other well-known families of Chambersburg 
were the Thomsons, Linns and Crawfords. Dr. 
William Thomson, who pra.cticed his profession 
in Philadelphia for many years and was known 
as a brilliant ophthalmologist, and Frank Thom- 

9 127 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

son, who was president of the Pennsylvania 
Eailroad at the time of his death, were both 
sons of the distinguished jurist, Alexander 
Thomson, of Chambersburg. Mr. Frank Thom- 
son named his beautiful country seat near Mer- 
ion, Pennsylvania, Corkerhill, after the old 
home in Scotland from which his great-grand- 
father, Alexander Thomson, had emigrated in 
1771. Edward Crawford, Esq., a well-known 
and honored citizen of Chambersburg, in con- 
nection with Alexander Calhoun, established 
the first bank in this town, of which he was presi- 
dent for over twenty years. His son, Thomas 
Hartley Crawford, was a distinguished lawyer 
and Judge of the District Court in Washington. 
While living in Chambersburg, Reade M. Wash- 
ington came from his home, Audley, in Clark 
County, Virginia, to read law with Judge Craw- 
ford. Mr. Washington fell in love with Miss 
Crawford, married her, and thus established the 
Pennsylvania branch of the Washington family. 
One morning we gave to Wilson College, 
one of the first colleges for women in Pennsyl- 
vania, which will soon celebrate its fiftieth anni- 
versary. The main building of the college 
was the old home of Colonel Alexander K. Mc- 
Clure, and with its large rooms and extensive 
grounds, is well adapted for the purpose. We 
noticed a picture of a woman placed in a promi- 
nent place on the parlor mantelpiece and were 
told that this was a portrait of Miss Sarah Wil- 

128 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

son, a farmer's daughter in the valley who had 
given the first money for the college. Not hav- 
ing had the advantages of a liberal education 
herself, she gave generously of her fortune for 
the founding of this college, in order that many 
young women might enjoy privileges that had 
been denied to her in her youth. All honor to 
Miss Wilson, and may many more women of her 
broad-minded outlook upon life and her gener- 
osity arise in the future to aid this excellent in- 
stitution of learning! 

Mr. Henderson left us early this morning. 
On our way from Gettysburg, he told us that he 
had offered his services to the Government, to be 
sent wherever he could be most useful, but not 
in the ranks, being, as he said, too old for that 
service. He does not look too old for any ser- 
vice, and I told him so, at which he laughed, 
blushed like a boy of fifteen and was evidently 
pleased. He thanked me, as the older woman 
of the party, for the pleasure of the trip, looking 
at Kathleen the while ; but one gets used to that 
sort of thing, and in making his adieus he said, 
**I may still be in Washington when Mrs. Davis 
is there. If so, I hope she will tell me where I 
may have the pleasure of calling on her." So 
he knows that Kathleen expects to be in Wash- 
ington later in the month. 

We are quite bereft without our adopted 
Antiquary, and still another misfortune has be- 
fallen us to-day. Wright came to us with a 

129 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

beaming smile upon his face, although he did 
make a valiant effort to look serious, and in- 
formed us that his orders had come and that he 
was to report in Washington the day after to- 
morrow. Ever mindful of our comfort, he 
wished to know what the ladies would like him 
to do ; should he take them back to Philadelphia ; 
there was plenty of time for that, or would they 
prefer to go on to "Washington the next day? I 
begged to be left out of the plan altogether, as 
I had some places to visit in the valley ; and as 
Kathleen had promised to take one of her Cham- 
bersburg friends to Washington some time this 
month, she decided in favor of taking that trip 
at once, saying, ''After that, I make no plans 
in these uncertain days. I will sell the car if 
I cannot find a good chauffeur. Of course, I can 
never hope to find another man like Wright. 
This is one of the sacrifices of the war." 

We had intended to go to Rocky Spring this 
afternoon, but instead were obliged to spend our 
time in seeing Kathleen's friend and in making 
other arrangements for her hurried exodus 
from this charming town, where we expected to 
spend several days together. We regret very 
much not being able to go to Rocky Spring, as 
it is one of the interesting places in this region. 
The Rocky Spring Church seems to have been 
founded here as early as 1738, and had for its 
pastor during the Revolutionary War one of the 
most valiant sons of the valley. 

130 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

This pastor, Mr. Craighead, evidently con- 
sidered the inculcation of patriotism an im- 
portant part of his religious duty. On one occa- 
sion, it is said, the patriotic preacher declaimed 
in such burning and powerful terms against the 
wrongs we were then suffering that, after a 
glowing description of the duty of the men, the 
whole congregation rose from their seats and 
declared their willingness to march to the con- 
flict. There was one, tradition says, in the entire 
assembly who was not overcome by the stirring 
appeal that was made, and that was an aged 
female, in whom maternal affection, recently 
caused to bleed, completely mastered both a 
sense of propriety and the love of liberty. 
''Stop, Mr. Craighead," she exclaimed. *'I jist 
want to tell ye, agin' you loss such a purty boy 
as I have in the war, ye will na be sa keen for 
fighting. Quit talking and gang yersel' to the 
war. Ye 're always preaching to the boys about 
it, but I dinna think ye 'd be very likely to gang 
yersel'. Jist ga and try it. " 

And the reverend gentleman did '*ga and 
try it," as he joined the Continental army in 
New Jersey, where he fought and preached al- 
ternately, acting as captain of his company 
when on the march, and in battle and in camp 
filling the office as the good chaplain to his 
soldiers. We regretted again after reading a 
little history of Rocky Spring Church which 
had been given us that we could not do honor 

181 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

to this good and brave dominie's memory by 
visiting his old home and pastorate. 

As we wished to see Greencastle again, and 
as it is on Kathleen's route to Washington, we 
set forth directly after the service in the old 
Falling Spring Church on Sunday morning. A 
spin of eleven miles through this lovely valley 
brought us to the old town, which looked peace- 
ful and seemed so set apart from "the world's 
ignoble strife" that it was difficult to realize 
that one of the most frightful Indian massacres 
had taken place in a schoolhouse quite near 
Greencastle in 1764. The teacher and all his 
pupils were murdered by the Indians with one 
exception. The one exception was Archibald 
McCullough, who was left in the schoolhouse 
under the impression that he was dead. He later 
revived, recovered from his wounds and lived 
many years to tell the tale of this sad day. It 
should be said to the honor of Enoch Brown, the 
schoolmaster, that he prayed the Indians to take 
his life only and spare the children, which 
prayer, says McCullough, was unheeded. 

A number of families, chiefly from the north 
of Ireland, settled on the site of the present town 
of Greencastle, then included in what was called 
the Conococheague Settlement, early in the 
eighteenth century; among them were the 
Craigs, Crawfords, Poes, Watsons, Davidsons, 
McClellans, Culbertsons and Allisons. William 
Allison, who came from the north of Ireland, 

182 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

acquired a large tract of land in this portion of 
the Conococheague Settlement, and was among 
those who met at Mr. Edward Shippen's house 
in Shippensburg to confer with regard to the 
erection of five forts in Franklin County. Fort 
Allison was soon after erected west of the pres- 
ent town of Greencastle, probably on Mr. Alli- 
son's land, most of which he left to his eldest 
son, Colonel John Allison. After the war, in 
which Colonel Allison served with distinction, 
he returned to Franklin County and laid out 
the town of Greencastle in 1782, which he named 
after the town from which his father had emi- 
grated to Pennsylvania. South of Greencastle 
on the Middleburg road is a fine old farm, the 
stone house still in good condition, which was the 
home of the late James Allison, the last member 
of the family who lived in this region. This 
place was noted for its beautiful spring, of which 
Kathleen had often heard her mother speak, 
and when she saw it she felt that it was quite 
equal to the descriptions she had heard of it, 
a deep pool of clear water, with a crystal stream 
flowing from it and all shaded by a great tree. 
In the town are a number of old houses, still 
in good condition, among them that of Dr. John 
Boggs, who was a leading physician here and 
highly esteemed as a family doctor, which, Kath- 
leen says, is a sort of M.D. which does not exist 
in these days of specialists. The old double 
house of Doctor Boggs and the fine landscape 

133 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

paper on the walls of the wide hall and stairway 
interested us greatly, and paper which has stood 
the wear and tear of nearly a hundred years is 
certainly worthy of admiration. ' This house is 
on North Carlisle Street, and quite near stands 
the Fletcher house, the ancestral home of the 
Hon. Henry Prather Fletcher, who has served 
his country with signal ability in the diplomatic 
service in the Philippines, in Havana, Pekin, 
Lisbon and later in Mexico as United States 
Ambassador. 

Another distinguished citizen of old Green- 
castle was Dr. John McClellan, who studied 
medicine in Philadelphia under Dr. Benjamin 
Rush and became a noted surgeon in the Cum- 
berland Valley. Doctor McClellan 's two sons, 
the Hon. Robert M. McClellan, who removed to 
Monroe, Michigan, and was twice elected Gov- 
ernor of that state, and William McLelland, of 
Chambersburg, spelled their names differently, 
which has caused some confusion. Both 
brothers were able, public-spirited citizens and 
an honor to a name about whose orthography 
they saw fit to differ. 

From this part of the Conococheague Settle- 
ment, as from other towns in the Cumberland 
Valley, all of the men young enough to bear 
arms during the Revolution did valiant service 
in the Continental army, the Scotch-Irish being 
of fighting stock, and the Allison, McLanahans, 
Browns, Crawfords, Watsons, Irwins, Blairs, 

134 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

Buchanans, Johnstons and other valley families 
were well represented. Four of the Johnston 
brothers were in the service at the same time. 
Colonel James Johnston commanded the regi- 
ment that marched from this part of the country 
into New Jersey. Colonel Thomas Johnston 
was acting colonel at the time that a part of the 
army under General Wayne was surprised at 
Paoli by a superior force of the enemy. An- 
other brother, Dr. Eobert Johnston, was army 
surgeon from the commencement of the war 
until its close, having been at Yorktown at the 
surrender of Lord Comwallis. Doctor Johnston 
was one of the original members of the Society 
of the Cincinnati, which was composed entirely 
of officers who had served during the war. At 
the close he made a voyage to China, having an 
interest in a cargo of gensing, then esteemed a 
great commodity, from which he realized a large 
fortune. "When he returned to his home he 
brought with him what was then considered a 
great curiosity, a Chinese sei-vant. Doctor 
Johnston purchased a farm and settled in 
Franklin County, where his home was a resort of 
the most distinguished men of the day, many of 
them his old army comrades. The Johnston 
family is only one among the many in this val- 
ley which sent all of its sons to the service of 
their country. 

When Kathleen left me at the station in 
Greencastle, with many regrets and promises 

135 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

to join me later in the summer, I felt as lonely 
as the proverbial sparrow on the housetop, and 
half regretted that I had not consented to take 
the beautiful drive with her on the Middleburg 
road through Hagerstown and Frederick to 
Washington, but having set forth to see Penn- 
sylvania towns, here I stay. As if to compen- 
sate me for the loss of my compagnon de voy- 
age, some good friends stopped to see me in 
the evening and proposed to take me to Ship- 
pensburg the next day. Of course, this invita- 
tion was accepted with alacrity, and the next 
morning found us on the highway speeding 
toward Shippensburg, where we found that we 
had a link with Philadelphia, the town having 
been laid out by Edward Shippen, grandson of 
the first Edward Shippen. The town as it now 
stands is upon a part of the Shippen, tract of over 
twelve hundred acres, for which Mr. Shippen 
had patent rights in 1737. Even before this 
date there were a number of settlers here, as 
Shippensburg claims to be the oldest town in 
the state west of the Susquehaima, with the 
exception of York. In 1730 there were twelve 
families in the settlement, and courageous set- 
tlers were these, living in a wilderness as they 
did with savages for neighbors ! We have heard 
much of the sufferings of the early settlers of 
New England, but for some reason the diffi- 
culties and dangers of the pioneers of middle 
and western Pennsylvania have not been dwelt 

136 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

upon at length in most histories of Colonial 
life, although they seem to have been quite 
as great. 

In a letter written from Shippensburg by 
James Magaw in 1733 to his brother, who evi- 
dently lived near Harris' Ferry, now Harris- 
burg, the writer says : 

I wish you would see John Harris at the feiTy and get 
him to write to the Governor to see if he can't get some guns 
for us; There's a good wheen of ingens about here, and I 
fear they intend to give us a good dale of troubbel and may 
do us a grate dale of harm. We was three days on our 
journey coming from Hamses ferry here. We could not 
make much speed on account of the childer; They could not 
get on as fast as Jane and me. 

Fort Franklin was built as early as 1740, 
but even with this protection those who worked 
in the fields were always in danger, and several 
years later a party of harvesters were surprised 
by the Indians in Mr. John Cessna 's field. ' ' Some 
of the men were killed, and Mr. Cessna and his 
two grandsons and John Kirkpatrick were cap- 
tured and carried oif . Other harvesters were in 
the field at this time, but a thicket which stood 
between them and the Indians concealed them 
from view." In the face of such dangers as 
this, the beautiful towns of the Cumberland 
Valley were established, and the farms sur- 
rounding them cultivated to a fertility equal to 
that of any portion of the Union. 

From an old record it appears that when the 

137 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

to^vn was laid out the old Indian path became 
the main road and was chosen for the location 
of King Street. Three-fourths of the residents 
of the town, in 1751, lived upon that portion of 
this street which lies between Washington 
Street and the top of the hill. Shippensburg 
was planned with so much judgment as to its 
situation that it soon became a flourishing town, 
and when the county of Cumberland was formed 
in January, 1750, the first courts of justice were 
held here, and although it had not regularly 
been so appointed, Shippensburg was regarded 
as the county-seat and so continued for some 
years, being the chief town in the valley. 

In his administration of affairs in Shippens- 
burg, Mr. Shippen was aided by James Burd, 
who had married his daughter Sarah. Gossip of 
the day has spoken of this as a runaway match, 
but even if this be true, Mr. Burd seems to have 
been on excellent terms with his father-in-law, 
for whom he acted as superintendent in Ship- 
pensburg. He took an active part in the build- 
ing of Fort Morris and later in the erection of 
Fort AugTista at Shamokin. It is evident that 
the fort at Shippensburg made this a safe re- 
treat for many families that had been driven 
from their homes. In a letter written to Edward 
Shippen in 1755, James Burd said: '^This town 
is full of people, they being all moving in with 
their families — five or six families in a house. 

138 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

We are in great want of animunition ; but with 
what we have we are determined to give the 
enemy as warm a reception as we can. Some 
of our people had been taken prisoners by this 
party, and have made their escape from them 
and come to us this morning. . . . We have 
a hundred men working at Fort Morris every 
day." He also wishes that they would send 
guns — ''great guns, small arms and ammuni- 
tion — from Philadelphia. - 

We were so much interested in the associa- 
tions of old Shippensburg that we paid little 
attention to its public school and other buildings 
or to its attractive homes, and we were fortunate 
here, as in other places, in meeting an enthusi- 
astic lover of his town who told us many inter- 
esting tales of the large quantities of military 
supplies stored here during the Revolution and 
of the great herds of cattle and swine then pas- 
tured in the rich meadow land near the town, 
from which the commissaries could supply 
their needs. 

One of Shippensburg 's claims to distinction 
is that General Washington was here twice at 
the time of the Whiskey Insurrection in 
western Pennsylvania. 

"He traveled through October 11, 1794, and 
took dinner at the Branch Inn. When he reached 
Bedford, Pa., he found it was not necessary for 

'History of Cumberland County, p. 260. 
139 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

him to go on, so he returned the way he came 
and on October 14th he stayed all night in Ship- 
pensburg. The stoiy is told that on this night 
the proprietor of the hotel, who was not a drink- 
ing man, felt so good in the great honor of 
entertaining the President that he got drunk; 
and one of Washington's aides got too much. 
To punish the aide, Washington made him walk 
his horse up and down the stream of water in 
Shippensburg called the McMeans Creek, now 
the Branch, until he was sober.^ 

An admirable device this for sobering a 
diTinken man, provided he is able to walk at all ; 
but rather severe treatment for the poor horse, 
which had to pay the penalty for his master's 
indiscretion without having had whatever pleas- 
ure is to be found in getting drunk ! 

Among the prominent residents of Shippens- 
burg are the Stewarts, whose ancestor. Dr. Alex- 
ander Stewart, emigrated from County Antrim, 
Ireland, in 1773, and settled in Frederick 
County, Maryland. In 1831 Dr. Alexander 
Stewart, grandson and namesake of the settler, 
after completing his education in Washington 
Medical College, Baltimore, began to practice 
his profession in Shippensburg, and was known 
here and for many miles through the surround- 
ing country as the skillful, devoted and well- 

* " History of the Cumberland Valley," by Harriet Wylie 
Stewart. 



140 



CHAMBERSBURG AND SHIPPENSBURG 

beloved physician. Mr. George H. Stewart, an 
influential citizen of Shippensburg, who owns 
many fine farms in this region, and Justice John 
Stewart, of the Superior Court, who now lives 
in Chambersburg, are sons of Dr. Alexander 
Stewart of Shippensburg. 

One of our party having a sentimental inter- 
est in Southampton furnace, which had been 
owned and operated by one of her ancestors, 
we decided to motor three miles into the South- 
ampton Gap to see the old house and works. 
Nothing is left of the furnace and chapel which 
belonged to the iron works, but the ''Big 
House" is standing, very little changed, and 
not looking so very big after all. ''Sic tran- 
sit," said the granddaughter of the old iron- 
master, a note of disappointment in her voice, 
adding, "I have always thought of it as a 
large house; but then I was a very little child 
myself when I saw it last. I saw something of 
the life at a charcoal furnace years later, when 
my grandfather had a furnace in Adams County, 
and I have never seen anything just like it any- 
where else." 

''You are quite right," I said. "There is 
nothing like it. Only those who have lived at an 
old iron furnace have any adequate conception 
of the almost feudal relations existing between 
the employer and employed. It was a condition 
of interdependence with an underlying sense of 

141 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

protection and friendliness. If these workmen 
had been called upon to arm themselves and go 
forth to fight for their chief as in feudal times, 
they would doubtless have gone without a mur- 
mur. As it was, the only lists that they were 
called upon to enter were to be found at the 
polls. At election time the hands were all sent 
in huge wagons to vote for whatever candidate 
represented the protective tariff, the fetish of 
the iron industry in the early and middle 
years of the last century, as it has been in 
later times," 

Mrs. William J. Rose, a daughter of Mr. 
William Watts, who owned and operated the 
Pine Grove Furnace for many years, said that in 
a "blowing in" of a furnace in the sixties great 
care was taken not to use a Democratic paper. 

The history and associations of many Penn- 
sylvania towns are inseparably connected with 
the iron furnaces that were early established in 
numerous counties of the state, especially near 
the mountain regions where the iron ore de- 
posits were discovered. 

Bereft of both of the traveling companions 
with whom I had set forth from Philadelphia 
and of the one we adopted in Lancaster, I con- 
cluded to take a train at Shippensburg for Car- 
lisle, where friends were awaiting me. 



VII 
A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



A STROLL along High Street, Carlisle, is like 
a journey into Colonial and Revolutionary days, 
so many old houses with beautiful doorsteps and 
porticoes are still to be found beside modern 
buildings. The Cumberland Valley trains pass 
through this street, as in the days before the 
Civil War, and the residents sit on their door- 
steps on summer evenings, just as Mrs. Dillon 
described them in her novel, *'In Old Bellaire." 
Something of the charm of the South the so- 
journer feels in Carlisle to-day, the same gener- 
ous hospitality and warmth of welcome are here 
that the New England girl in Mrs. Dillon's story 
felt when she stepped out of the primitive train — 
which rang a bell to announce its approach — and 
stepped along High Street accompanied by the 
dignified president of Dickinson College, who 
had gone to meet the new teacher. Early mem- 
ories crowded around me as I walked along 
this street, past the Court House Square, the 
spacious Parker house, with its beautiful por- 
tico, and so on by many an old home to the 
shaded grounds of the college; but in vain I 
looked for Martin's Hotel, which once stood on 

10 143 



m OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

High Street, an old-time hostelry associated in 
my mind with many a regale in childish days. 
Here, after a twelve-mile drive over the monn- 
tains by Holly Gap, across Hunter's Run and 
Yellow Breeches Creek, and by a steep hill of 
rocks, along whose side old Peter Ege is said 
to have ridden after a fox or deer, we were 
warmly welcomed by Mrs. Martin, hospitable 
and delightfully loquacious landlady, who 
graphically related all the news of the town 
while she spread before her guests a dinner that, 
with appetites sharpened by a long drive in the 
mountain air, seemed to us equal to a feast 
of Lucullus. Martin's Hotel was found later on 
High Street, but altered beyond recognition by 
the addition of two stories and other changes. 
And no Mrs. Martin was there to smile her wel- 
come at the side door and enliven the visit by 
her tales of garrison and college doings, not the 
less interesting to childish ears, if seasoned with 
a bit of gossip, this last in a stage whisper all 
the more enticing because only half understood, 
upon which the wise mother, instead of stimu- 
lating curiosity by saying ''don't let the chil- 
dren hear, ' ' by some tactful question turned the 
tide of talk into channels more suited to the 
ears of ''little pitchers," whose long ears were 
naturally agog for stories. 

"No place knows its own history better than 
Philadelphia," wrote Sir George Trevelyan, the 

144 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



broad-minded English historian of the Amer- 
ican Revolution, and the same expression may 
be used in speaking of the town of Carlisle ; but 
to get into the heart of the old town one must 
walk or motor through its streets with those 
who love its history and traditions, or sit with 
them on their porticoes on summer evenings and 
hear their tales, handed down from father to 
son through many generations. These tales 
go back to the days when the Delawares, Shaw- 
nees and Tuscaroras still lingered upon their 
familiar hunting-grounds in this beautiful val- 
ley and made frequent attacks upon the settle- 
ments. Indeed, few frontier towns have a more 
tragic early history than Carlisle, and many 
thrilling stories are to be found in the annals 
of the Cumberland Valley. One of the most 
interesting of these, and one of the few Indian 
tales that has a cheerful ending, is that of the 
return of the captives after Colonel Bouquet's 
successful campaign of 1764. One of the terms 
of the treaty was that the prisoners taken by the 
Indians should be returned. Of one joyful re- 
union Dr. Alfred Nevin has written: ''A great 
number of the restored prisoners were brought 
to Carlisle, and Colonel Bouquet advertised for 
those who had lost children to come there and 
look for them. Among those that came was an 
old woman, whose child, a little girl, had been 
taken from her several years before, but she was 

145 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

unable to designate her daughter or converse 
with the released captives. With breaking heart 
the old woman lamented to Colonel Bouquet her 
hapless lot, telling him how she used, many years 
ago, to sing to her little daughter a hymn of 
which the child was so fond. She was requested 
by the Colonel to sing it then, which she did 
in these words : 

Alone, yet not alone am I, 

Though in this solitude so drear; 

I feel my Saviour always nigh, 
He comes my every hour to cheer, 

and the long-lost daughter rushed into the arms 
of her mother. ' ' 

This incident occurred more than twelve 
years after the settlement of Carlisle, when it 
was still a small town, although it had out- 
grown the limits described by John Neal in 1753, 
when there were only five houses and but twelve 
men in the garrison. The court was then 
held in a log building on the northeast cor- 
ner of Center Square. Its garrison at Fort 
Lowther being so poorly equipped, it is not 
strange that Carlisle suffered severely from 
Indian depredations. 

Shippensburg and other places had been pre- 
ferred for the county-seat of the newly-elected 
County of Cumberland; but James Hamilton, 
then Governor of Pennsylvania, was firm in his 
determination to have it situated on the banks of 

146 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



Le Tort 's Spring, a stream four miles in length, 
named after an Indian interpreter. In support 
of this decision, which the inhabitants of Ship- 
pensburg considered somewhat arbitrary, the 
G^overnor gave as his reasons that ''here 
was a wholesome dry limestone soil, good air 
and abundancy of vacant land, well covered with 
a variety of woods. ' ' He also charged his com- 
missioners, Nicholas Scull and Thomas Cook- 
son "to take into consideration the following 
matters, viz. : the health of the citizens, the good- 
ness and plenty of water, with the easiest method 
of coming at it; its conunodiousness to the great 
road leading from Harris' Ferry to the Po- 
towmac, and to other necessary roads, as well 
into the neighbouring county as over the passes 
in the Blue Mountains. ' ' 

In October, 1753, a conference with several 
tribes of Indians was held at Carlisle, Richard 
Peters, Isaac Norris and Benjamin Franklin 
representing the Province of Pennsylvania. Of 
this conference and of the Indians, Franklin 
wrote in his Autobiography: "As those people 
are extremely apt to get drunk, and, when so, 
are very quarrelsome and disorderly, we strictly 
forbade the selling any liquor to them ; and when 
they complained of this restriction, we told them 
that if they would continue sober during the 
treaty, we would give them plenty of rum when 
business was over. They promised this and 

147 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

they kept their promise, because they could get 
no liquor, and the treaty was conducted very 
orderly, and concluded to mutual satisfaction. 
They then claim 'd and received the rum; this 
was in the afternoon : there were near one hun- 
dred men, women and children, and were lodged 
in temporary cabins, built in the form of a 
square, just without the to^\m. In the evening, 
hearing a great noise among them, the com- 
missioners walked out to see what was the mat- 
ter. We found they had made a great bonfire 
in the middle of the square ; they were all drunk, 
men and women, quarreling and fighting. Their 
dark-colour 'd bodies, half naked, seen only by 
the gloomy light of the bonfire, running after 
and beating one another with firebrands, accom- 
panied by their horrid yellings, form'd a scene 
the most resembling our ideas of Hell that could 
well be imagin'd; there was no appeasing the 
tumult, and we retired to our lodging. ' ' 

It is quite evident that Doctor Franklin held 
the same views as General Sherman as he added 
with more philosophy than benevolence: ''And, 
indeed, if it be the design of Providence to ex- 
tirpate these savages in order to make room for 
cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable 
that rum may be the appointed means. It has 
already annihilated all the tribes who formerly 
inhabitated the sea-coast." 

It is an interesting coincidence that the sav- 

148 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



ages, as well as Doctor Franklin, were disposed 
to put the blame of their misdeeds upon Provi- 
dence, for if the latter considered rum a short 
and easy method for disposing of the Indian 
question, the counsellor who acted as spokes- 
man of the tribes at the time said in justification 
of the savages' dininken brawl: ''The Great 
Spirit, who made all things, made everything for 
some use, and whatever use he design 'd anything 
for, that use it should always be put to. Now, 
when he made rum, he said, 'Let this be for the 
Indians to get drunk with,' and it must be so." 

It is difficult for those who wander through 
the streets of this pretty and prosperous county- 
seat of a fertile and populous valley to realize 
that at the time of the visit of Franklin and his 
fellow-commissioners, Carlisle was little more 
than a frontier fort. 

In 1753 Fort Lowther, on High Street near 
the Public Square, was a harbor of refuge for 
the pioneer and his family. Although, as one 
of its annalists has said, "Carlisle showed its 
desire to deal justly with the men of the forest 
and to live in peace with them, this desirable 
millennial condition was so frequently disturbed 
by attacks upon the settlers of the valley that it 
became necessary to increase the garrison at 
Fort Lowther, and finally in 1756 to send an 
armed force against Kittanning, where the In- 
dians had collected large supplies of ammunition 

149 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

and provisions. Colonel, afterwards General 
John Armstrong, led this successful expedition. 
Under his command were "William Thompson 
and Henry Miller, who with their leader won 
their first laurels in the Kittanning expedition, 
all three having distinguished themselves later 
in the War of the Revolution. 

Important as was the part taken by this 
frontier town in the French and Indian wars, the 
role played by Carlisle and the surrounding 
towns of the Cumberland Valley in the War of 
the Revolution was even more distinguished. 
This beautiful valley, watered by the Conodo- 
guinet and its tributaries and ahnost encircled 
by two spurs of the Blue Ridge, known as the 
North and South Mountains, sent forth many 
valiant sons at the call of their country. Among 
those who went to the front in the early days 
of the Revolution and reflected honor upon their 
home town were Generals Henry Miller, William 
Irvdne, John Armstrong, Colonel Thomas But- 
ler, who with his four brothers were known as 
''the fighting Butlers," Colonel Robert Mor- 
gan, one of the defenders of Fort Washington on 
the Hudson in 1776, and General William 
Thompson, who with his battalion of Pennsyl- 
vania Riflemen, was said to be the first to reach 
Boston from the South in 1775. General Arm- 
strong, a native of Ireland, early identified him- 
self with the country of his adoption, and in 

150 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



addition to gaining distinction in its service in 
two wars, gained the still greater distinction of 
being the trusted friend of Washington. The 
remains of General Ai*mstrong rest in the beau- 
tiful old cemetery of Carlisle, which was a gift 
from the Penn,s, where, under its overshadoAving 
trees lie the ashes of many of the good and great. 
In this cemetery Mollie Pitcher is buried. A fine 
spirited statue now mark^s the grave of this 
patriotic young woman. So often has discredit 
been thrown upon the story of Mollie Pitcher's 
services to her country that we feel indebted to 
the Hon. Edward Biddle for its painstaking 
and satisfactory verification. From Judge 
Biddle 's address, delivered in 1916, at the time 
of the unveiling of the monument, it appears 
that Mary Ludwig came to Carlisle from New 
Jersey in 1769 as a domestic servant and soon 
after married a young barber named John Hays, 
who enlisted in 1775 for one year as a gunner 
in Proctor's Artillery. In January, 1777, Hays 
reenlisted as a private in an infantry regiment 
under the command of Colonel William Irvine, 
of Carlisle. This regiment was at Valley Forge 
during the severe winter of 1777-78, and 
marched from there in June, 1778, to take part 
in the Battle of Monmouth. Mary, the wife of 
John Hays, went to her New Jersey home some 
time prior to the Battle of Monmouth, and the 
story of her humane services to the troops is thus 

151 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

related by Judge Biddle : ' ' It was an extremely- 
hot Sunday and many of the soldiers of both 
armies perished from exhaustion and thirst. 
While the battle was going on, Molly carried 
water to the Continental troops from a well in 
order to relieve their thirst, and the constant 
passing to and fro with a pitcher in her hand is 
what has given her the sobriquet by which she 
is known in history. The underground spring 
from which the water was obtained was con- 
spicuously marked some years ago by two 
wooden signs erected beside it, on each of which 
was painted 'Mollie Pitcher's Well.' " 

Perhaps her services as water-carrier would 
soon have been forgotten if she had done nothing 
more on that day in aid of the great cause, but 
an even larger service was yet to come. As the 
fight raged, she discovered that her husband had 
been wounded and that there was no one to serve 
the cannon to which he had been detailed. She 
at once took his place at the gun and for the 
balance of the day, so long as needed, acted as 
cannoneer. In commemoration of her heroic 
behavior, upon one of the bronze tablets at the 
base of the handsome monument which has been 
placed on the battle-field, she is represented in 
the act of charging a cannon. " After the Revo- 
lution, Mrs. Mary Hays and her husband re- 
turned to Carlisle; in 1787 he died, and in 1792 
the widow Hays married John McCauley, who 

162 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



died in the course of twelve years. Left a widow 
a second time Molly earned her living by hard 
labor, such as cleaning and whitewashing in pub- 
lic buildings, as appears from an old book in the 
County Commissioners' office which contains 
entries of payments made to her. ' ' Under date 
of March 29, 1811, 'Molly McCalley, for wash- 
ing and scrubbing the court-house, in part — 
$15.00.' . . . On August 5, 1813, an order 
which was duly paid was drawn in favor of 
'Molly McCawley & others, for cleaning, wash- 
ing and whitewashing the public buildings — 
$22.36.' " These items furnish authentic in- 
formation concerning her manner of obtaining a 
livelihood at that period of her life. 

Some of the confusion with regard to the 
identity and services of Molly Pitcher may have 
been due to the fact that her name, after her 
second marriage, was spelled in several different 
ways, McCawley, McCalley, McCauley and 
M 'Kolly, under which latter name a pension was 
granted by the Legislature of Pennsylvania. 
Even if the pension was granted from the state 
treasury **for Molly M 'Kolly for her services 
during the Revolutionary War" the money was 
designed for and received by the widow Mc- 
Cauley, who as a young woman served her 
country and was then called Mollie Pitcher. 
State treasurers do not, as a rule, grant pensions 
to fictitious characters or to persons little 

153 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

known, and at that time, 1822, there were many 
residents of Carlisle who knew all about Mrs. 
McCauley, her life and services, and could then 
have denied the whole story, if they knew it 
to be false. 

Other honors than those gained by force of 
arms belong to Carlisle. One chronicler spoke 
of it as the frontier town of an advancing civ- 
ilization and another wrote of the town and the 
section surrounding it as an early center of 
peace and counsel. This was literally true as 
hither the Indian tribes came up to meet the 
white man in council, as they had come to Phila- 
delphia and Germantown in early days of the 
settlement, and later to Lancaster and other 
Peimsylvania towns, for in no state were the 
natives treated so justly as in this one where, 
as long as the Quakers had control, the wise 
Founder's resolve 'Ho live justly, peaceably 
and friendly ' ' with the children of the forest was 
carried out. 

Pleasantly situated in the middle of a fertile 
and well-watered valley, Carlisle offered many 
attractions as a place of residence. In addi- 
tion to such early settlers as the Wattses, 
Blaines, Parkers, Bairds, Biddies, Millers, Al- 
exanders and Reeds, there came hither and 
identified themselves with the life of the town 
men of distinction from elsewhere, such men as 
Chief Justice Gibson, who found relaxation from 

154 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



legal studies in the delights of music and was 
never laiown to leave home without his violin. 
Another eminent lawyer who made his home 
for ten years in Carlisle was James Wilson, a 
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and 
one of the leading jurists of the country. Al- 
though Judge Wilson came to Carlisle as a 
young man, he had already established his repu- 
tation as a legal authority, having made some 
important rulings in land claims, notably his de- 
cision upon the warmly-disputed claims of Con^ 
necticut and Pennsylvania to the Wyoming set- 
tlements in the northeastern part of the latter 
state. Judge Wilson's important work as one 
of the f ramers of the State and of the National 
Constitution was performed later, after his re- 
moval to Philadelphia. 

To this interesting social life, which was 
graced by the presence of a number of charming 
women and enriched intellectually by the fac- 
ulty of the recently-established college, the Rev. 
Charles Nisbet came from Scotland to be its first 
president. Whatever attractions other visitors 
found in Carlisle, nothing in its social or re- 
ligious life appealed to the learned Scotchman, 
who seemed to have been as dour as Carlyle in 
his most dyspeptic state, as he wrote home that 
he found ' ' everything on a dead level, no men of 
learning nor taste, and of religious people the 
fewest of all." And yet at this time Carlisle 

155 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

possessed a number of churches, the Episco- 
palians and Presbyterians having stately edi- 
fices in Center Square, and so high did religious 
or denominational feeling run in the latter body 
that Mrs. John Bannister Gibson was ''read out 
of the Presbyterian Church for permitting 
worldly amusements in her home. ' ' 

The hospitable Gibson mansion, where the 
wit of the host and the beauty of the hostess 
made an attractive meeting place for young and 
old, is still standing on the corner of North Han- 
over Street. This fine old residence and the 
Watts house on Hanover Street with its beauti- 
ful Colonial doorway and fine carved mantels 
give one some idea of the luxury and style of 
Carlisle houses in early days. Although known 
as the Watts house, Mr. and Mrs. David Watts 
having lived there for many years, this old man- 
sion was built by Colonel Ephraim Blaine, one 
of the early settlers of the Cumberland Valley. 
Colonel Blaine, a great-grandfather of the dis- 
tinguished statesman, James G. Blaine, was him- 
self a notable person, an officer of distinction 
and a trusted friend of Washington, whom he 
served as Commissary General of the Northern 
Department during the last four years of the 
War of the Eevolution. This house, a part of 
which is now used as his office by Judge Hen- 
derson, in addition to its fine wainscoting and 
exquisite wood carvings, boasts a wonderful 

166 




Doorway of House of David Watts on Hanover Street, Carlisle 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



landscape paper representing' various scenes 
from the romantic story of Paul and Virginia, 
which has been on the wall for many years and 
has been the delight of several generations 
of children. 

The Penrose house on Main Street, in which 
members of the family still live, holds many 
objects of interest. 

Another spacious old mansion on the Main 
Street, with a side garden on Bedford Street, is 
the Thome house, with its beautiful stairway, 
octagonal rooms in wliich the mahogany doors 
are rounded to fit the walls, and wonderful man- 
tels. A pair of these mantels has found a 
home in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 
through the generosity of Mr. Francis P. Gor- 
ham. One of these, the more elaborate of the 
two, represents Commodore Perry's victory on 
Lake Erie in 1814, a favorite design at that time. 
This stirring scene is cleverly treated in low 
relief and is surrounded by a delicate tracery 
of scrolls and flowers set in a beaded panel. 
In the second mantel the central panel repre- 
sents a memorial sarcophagus upon which is 
inscribed, *'To the Memory of Departed 
Heroes. ' ' These and other beautiful mantels in 
the old house are not Adam specimens, as was 
thought at one time, but are the work of Robert 
Wellford, who did quite a large business in 
Philadelphia in the early years of the last cen- 

157 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

tury at 96 South Eighth Street, which he called 
*' Original American Composition Ornament 
Manufactory." The work certainly reflects 
credit upon the ''composer/' even if it did not 
quite justify his pretentious title. 

On the north side of High, between Pitt and 
West Streets, is one of the most interesting old 
houses in Carlisle. 

The Parker house, with its hospitable por- 
tico, many-windowed fa§ade and its curved 
steps, dates back to the early years of the last 
century, when it was owned by Isaac Brown 
Parker, who came from Avondale, Ireland, when 
a boy, to be under the care of his uncle, John 
Brown, Esq., in Philadelphia. He was sent to 
Dickinson College, Carlisle; later studied law 
with Judge Hamilton in Carlisle; married a 
niece of Mrs. Hamilton's, Maria Ross Veazey, 
from Maryland, and built or rebuilt an old stone 
house bought from Doctor Davidson into the 
spacious mansion that now stands on High 
Street. The building materials for this house 
were selected with great care and the plans 
made by Mrs. Parker, who doubtless had in mind 
some fine old homestead in her own state. Mr. 
Isaac B. Parker, after inheriting a large estate 
near Philadelphia, removed to that city and 
afterward to Burlington, New Jersey. Mr. 
Parker's son, John Brown Parker, lived in this 
house until his death in 1888. Mr. Parker 

158 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



was married twice; his first wife was Miss 
Margaret Brisbane, and his second wife, 
who survived him and lived in the old home 
until her death, was Miss Sarah J. Richards, 
of Pittsburgh. 

A little farther along High Street are the 
beautiful grounds of Dickinson College, and on 
the same side of the street are the residences 
of the Hon. Edward W. Biddle and J. Kirk 
Bosler, Esq., while opposite to them and at 
the comer of Mooreland Avenue are the fine 
house and extensive grounds of the late 
Johnston Moore. 

Many sojourners in Carlisle have doubtless 
wondered why a Presbyterian college should 
have been named after a Philadelphia Quaker, 
John Dickinson, author of the "Farmers Let- 
ters" and president of the Supreme Executive 
Council of Pennsylvania, but after all the reason 
is not far to seek. It chanced that Mr. Dickinson 
and his lovely wife, Mary Norris, while making a 
journey by carriage to the western part of the 
state, came as far as Carlisle, and knowing 
something of the old town and its people, when 
the subject of establishing a college there was 
being considered, Mr. Dickinson was interested 
and gave liberally in lands in Adams and Cum- 
berland Counties. He also donated fifteen hun- 
dred volumes from the Fair Hill Library to the 
new institution of learning. 

11 159 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Although Mr. Dickinson was much interested 
in the project of establishing a college in Car- 
lisle and the initial meeting of the board of 
trustees was held at his house in Philadelphia 
in May, 1783, Judge Biddle says that Dr. Ben- 
jamin Kush was an even more enthusiastic ad- 
vocate of the project. He it was who was most 
influential in obtaining a charter for the college 
and in securing the services of the learned Dr. 
Charles Nisbet, of Scotland, as its first presi- 
dent, which appears from a voluminous corre- 
spondence between the two gentlemen. 

When Doctor Nisbet and his family reached 
Philadelphia they stopped for three weeks at 
the home of Doctor Rush on Second Street be- 
fore setting forth upon the long journey to Car- 
lisle, which seems to have occupied over fonr 
days, as they started on Thursday, Jmie 30th, 
and did not reach Carlisle until the evening of 
July 4th. We learn from Doctor Nisbet 's letter 
to Doctor Rush that there was a stop-over of a 
day and night at Lancaster. "We reached the 
Waggon Inn on the first day, ' ' he said, ' * and ar- 
rived at Lancaster next day by one o'clock. 
There we were constrained to stay until next 
day by the hospitality of the inhabitants. We 
reached York the third day and stayed there 
until Monday. I preached for Mr. Campbell in 
the afternoon in great weakness on account of 
the heat. We left York on Monday, the fourth, 

160 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



breakfasted at the half-way house, and were met 
by the Light Horse belonging to Carlisle at the 
Yellow Breeches Creek, by whom we were con- 
ducted to the Boiling Springs near the Iron 
Works. Here we found the inhabitants of Car- 
lisle assembled to celebrate the anniversary of 
the Declaration of Independence. We dined in 
the open air under a canopy of oaken leaves, 
in imitation of the Jewish Feast of Tab- 
ernacles, and after visiting the Iron Works 
proceeded in the evening to Carlisle attended by 
the company. ' ' ^ 

Philadelphia had much to do with the estab- 
lishment of this college at Carlisle; not only 
was Mr. Dickinson its first president, but upon 
its board were such influential and patriotic citi- 
zens as Dr. Benjamin Rush, William Bingham 
and Henry Hill. James Wilson, the learned jur- 
ist, who belonged to Philadelphia as well as Car- 
lisle, was one of the trustees, and Colonel John 
Montgomeiy, member of Congress at Annap- 
olis, and General John Armstrong were both 
actively interested in the foundation of Dick- 
inson College. WTien Old West, one of the 
twelve buildings of the college, was nearly com- 
pleted, a fire occurred which consumed the 
building. This calamity the trustees of the col- 
lege and the citizens of Carlisle met with gen- 
erous subscriptions, which were augmented by 

^ " The Founding and Founders of Dickinson College," by 
the Hon. Edward W. Biddle. 

161 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

contributions from Thomas Jefferson, then 
President of the United States, and by several 
members of Congress. Old West soon rose 
again in beauty, and as it stands to-day affords 
a noble example of academic Colonial architec- 
ture. As we wandered through the lovely 
grounds of Dickinson by the old buildings, 
through the '' Lover's Lane" and other shaded 
paths for the use of pedestrians less amatory, 
we were reminded of the many distinguished 
men who have come forth from these aca- 
demic groves, and of the interesting pro- 
fessors that Dickinson has included in her 
faculty. High up in the list of the il- 
lustrious sons of Dickinson is the name of the 
late Spencer FuUerton Baird, whom Carlisle 
claims as her own, although Doctor Baird was 
not born there. He, however, came to Carlisle 
at an early age with his mother, was a graduate 
of Dickinson and professor there for some years 
before he was called to national service and na- 
tional honors as secretary of the Smithsonian 
Institute in Washington. Although Professor 
Baird may not, like St. Francis of Assisi, have 
spoken of the birds and beasts as his ''little 
brothers," he seems to have been equally fond 
of all flying, moving creatures, and was wont to 
carry animate specimens about in his pocket 
and even allowed his small daughter to have a. 
black snake as a pet. 

Another noted graduate of Dickinson was the 

162 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



philanthropic, public-spirited citizen and vol- 
uminous writer, Moncure D. Conway, in whoso 
honor the late Andrew Carnegie gave Conway 
Hall to the college. In his pleasant recollections 
of his college days in Carlisle, Doctor Conway 
speaks with enthusiasm of the faculty of Dick- 
inson. Of William Allen, professor of chem- 
istry, who also included such widely diverse 
branches as rhetoric and logic in his repertoire, 
he says that Dickinson was fortunate in having 
the services of so versatile a scholar as Mr. 
Allen, adding that ' ' in his class in logic the text- 
book was Whateley 's, but Mr. Allen was an abler 
man than Whateley." Dr. John McClintock, 
professor of Greek, who was acting presi- 
dent for a time after the death of President 
Emory, was one of Doctor Conway's well- 
beloved professors, and so clever a teacher that 
it was currently reported that he could make 
Greek interesting. Professor Baird was, at this 
time, the youngest of the faculty. "He was," 
said Doctor Conway, "the beloved professor 
and the ideal student." The weekly rambles 
with Doctor Baird, when he introduced his class 
to his intimates in the world of nature, were 
looked forward to by his students as among the 
joys of the coming spring. 

Nor was the social life of Carlisle purely 
academic; there was here, as in all old Penn- 
sylvania and southern towns, a gayer social 
life, and from an old copy of * * The Subscription 

163 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Paper of the Carlisle Dancing Assembly," re- 
cently unearthed by a local historian, Dr. 
Charles F. Himes, it appears that the young 
people of this Scotch Presbyterian settlement 
danced as gaily as those of Quaker Philadelphia. 
Indeed, the rules for this assembly are so like 
those of the Philadelphia Dancing Assembly of 
1748 as to lead one to conclude that the Carlisle 
assembly was modeled after the plan of the 
older association. This seems more probable in 
view of the constant communication between the 
two places. In the Carlisle assemblies, as in 
those of Philadelphia, ladies were treated with 
so much distinction that they were not permitted 
to subscribe. ''In Carlisle, they were," said 
Dr. Himes, ''delicately invited by having season 
tickets sent them by the managers." Delicacy 
of this sort would certainly be appreciated to- 
day ! The manager of the assembly was a very 
important person, and "drest in a little brief 
authority," he ruled the dancers with a rod of 
iron. The Marquis de Chastellux relates an 
amusing story of a sometime manager of the 
Philadelphia assemblies who exercised his of- 
fice with so much severity that it is told of him 
that a young lady who was figuring in a country 
dance, having forgot her turn by talking with a 
friend, he came up to her and called out aloud, 
"Give over. Miss, take care what you are about! 
Do you think you are here for your pleasure?" 
As in the Philadelphia assemblies, each set 

164 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



was to consist of ten couples, those ladies who 
arrived first forming the first set. Eveiy set of 
ladies drew for places, but the managers could 
place strangers and brides at the head of the 
dances. The arrangements were all dignified 
and formal, as befitted the stately minuet that 
was danced by ladies no less stately and to the 
music of the fiddle, which was always in evidence 
in the dance of that period. 

That the Carlisle dancing assemblies were 
extremely popular we learn from various 
sources. Several letters from the family of 
Miss Emmeline Knox Parker go to prove their 
popularity among young men of the time. In a 
letter addressed by Mr. James Hamilton in Car- 
lisle to John Brown, Esq., Pine Street, Phila- 
delphia, he says : ''Almost all the young men of 
this place have subscribed to the Dancing As- 
sembly, 8 nights for 8 Dollars, and which will 
be supported by the first Inhabitants of the 
place, perhaps one night in the week might be 
proper to divert to such an amusement, as young 
people if refused a reasonable gratification, will 
frequently seek a resource. Your nephew will 
not attempt to subscribe without your appro- 
bation. If you agree to it, it should be on the 
condition of withdrawing early, and making up 
by increased diligence if possible, for the portion 
of time so appropriated." To this request so 
politely and discreetly worded, Mr. Brown 
naturally gave his consent, and young Mr. Isaac 

165 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

B. Parker joined the gay throng at the modest 
rate of one dollar for each night. 

From these letters, from many others, and 
from diaries of the time, it appears that Carlisle, 
in common with Chambersburg, York, Lancas- 
ter and other southern Pennsylvania towns was 
in constant communication with Philadelphia. 
Many links, social, business and political, united 
these towns with the more important center, and 
we learn, on good authority, that the leading 
citizens of Carlisle journeyed to Philadelphia 
for the latest fashions. Apropos of fashions, 
it appears that some high-born dames of this old 
to^vn were quite independent of its decrees. It 
is said of one of these ladies, Mrs. Lydia Spen- 
cer Biddle, that when her granddaughters would 
object to wearing some garment, which she con- 
sidered suitable, on the ground that it was not 
the fashion, they would be met with the crushing 
reply: ''When I was young, anything that Miss 
Spencer wore was the fashion." This valiant 
lady, the grandmother of Professor Spencer F. 
Baird, removed to Carlisle after the death of 
her husband, William Macfunn Biddle. Mrs. 
Biddle 's daughters, Mrs. Samuel Baird and 
Mrs. Charles B. Penrose, both lived in Carlisle 
for some years, and to add to the Biddle settle- 
ment there her youngest daughter, Mary, the 
wife of Mayor William Blaney, of the Engineer 
Corps, established her home in Carlisle after 
the death of her husband. A younger brother, 

166 



1 



A PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN 



Edward M. Biddle, married Juliana Watts, of 
Carlisle, and became the head of what are gen- 
erally known as the Carlisle Biddies, to distin- 
guish them from the very large family in Phila- 
delphia, all deriving their ancestry from the 
same source and marked by many of the same 
characteristics. The gayety of the old town was 
naturally enhanced by the fact that a number of 
officers were quartered at the Carlisle Barracks, 
dashing young officers from North and South. 
As they galloped through the town on their spir- 
ited horses we can imagine the bright eyes of 
fair damsels following them from the windows 
of some fine old house or even waving them 
a greeting from some doorway. Fortunate were 
those who were invited to enter these hospitable 
mansions and partake of such delectable repasts 
as Mrs. Dillon has so feelingly described, with 
such fried chicken and waffles as come only from 
the hands of southern cooks or from those who 
have learned the secrets of their art from these 
turbaned chefs of Maryland and Virginia. 

In the midst of all this pleasant social life, 
studious and gay, there came the rumblings of 
distant and then near thunder, until in 1861 the 
storm burst and the sons of these lovely cities 
of the plain went forth to war. Many of the 
students of Dickiiison were from the South and 
naturally returned to their own states, and the 
gay cavalry officers quitted what seemed like 
playing at soldiers to enter into the stern real- 
ities of war. 

167 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

That the hospitality of Carlisle was appre- 
ciated hy some of the young southern officers 
and students was proved at the time of the Con- 
federate invasion in more than one instance. 
General Ewell, who had been stationed at the 
barracks before the war, although he made ex- 
travagant demands for rations, allowed no vio- 
lence or outrage during his occupation of the 
town, according to the testimony of old inhabi- 
tants. ' * At one prominent home the family had 
retired that anxious Saturday night, only to be 
aroused by a ring at the bell. On asking who 
wished entrance and receiving a well-known 
name in reply, the ladies timidly said, *Do you 
come as friend or as foe?' 'Always as friend 
to this house,' was the quick response." Which 
was pleasing evidence of a good memory as well 
as a grateful heart at this critical time. ' ' ^ 

Our minds still dwelling upon the many asso- 
ciations of this old town, we motored through 
the Main Street and on toward the highway 
leading to Harrisburg, stopping on our way at 
the handsome and well-equipped library founded 
in memory of a well-known citizen of Carlisle, 
Mr. J. Herman B osier. Standing in this beau- 
tiful library we could not but wish that every 
town in Pennsylvania of any size had a library 
approaching this in equipment, for only by 
means of such libraries can the education and 
uplift of the rising generation be attained. 

" " Carlisle Old and New." 



VIII 
FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

A LOVER of his state and one especially de- 
voted to his own portion of it, finds fault with 
the plans for a motor trip throngh middle and 
southern Pennsylvania, in which Carlisle and 
the delightful route from Harrisburg to Car- 
lisle has been left out. 

' ' The route, ' ' he says, ' ' to Carlisle from Har- 
risburg is over the State Highway, and the sec- 
tion between Harrisburg and Carlisle is one 
of the finest pieces of construction ever done by 
the State Highway Department. This route 
is the logical one from Harrisburg to Get- 
tysburg and is generally followed by tourists 
and travelers." 

We quite agreed with this writer's estimate 
of the charms of this part of the Highway, which 
is also the trolley route, and passes by Boiling 
Springs, a public park and pleasure resort, and 
many other places. All approaches to Harris- 
burg are attractive, whether by train, trolley 
or motor; but the most beautiful by far is by 
the Lincoln Highway and across the great spans 
of the bridge, whose central piers stand on a 
large island in the Susquehanna. Prom this 

169 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

bridge the many spires of the town rose before 
us, all dominated by the dome of the Capitol, 
which, standing on its hilltop, shining white 
against the blue sky and bathed in sunny light, 
as we saw it this afternoon, seemed to us in 
beauty only second to the National Capitol on 
its famous hilltop. The river drive along which 
we sped is the favorite residential street of 
Harrisburg, which is not to be wondered at, for 
no more beautiful site for a town house could 
be found. Here is the Executive Mansion and 
also the fine old houses of the Camerons, Halde- 
mans, Pearsons and other early residents of 
Harrisburg. Indeed, the banks of the Susque- 
hanna seem to have been considered a desirable 
situation for a town, at an early date, as John 
Harris, who came here about 1719, found several 
Indian villages on or near the present site of the 
capital, and it is said that in answer to a given 
signal sixty or seventy warriors could be assem- 
bled at the village of Peixtan, where Harrisburg 
now stands. The Indians of this region belonged 
to the Six Nations, whose villages were to be 
found farther north and south on the Susque- 
hanna and at the mouths of the Conodog"uinet 
and Yellow Breeches Creeks. 

The first John Harris came from Yorkshire, 
England, and lived in Chester and Lancaster 
Counties before he settled in this region, where 
he was the first English trader. Here he estab- 

170 



FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

lished his Ferry, which soon became so well 
known that letters from abroad with no other 
address than John Harris, Harris' Ferry, N. 
America, frequently reached him. He had two 
houses on the Susquehanna, one a trading post 
surrounded by sheds, in which were stored skins 
and furs obtained by traffic with the Indians, 
who brought them from the western country; 
the other house was his home, farther back from 
the river, surrounded by a great stockade. Mrs. 
Harris, of English birth like her husband, seems 
to have been a quick-witted woman, possessed of 
the character and courage needed in pioneer life. 

The gate of the stockade was usually care- 
fully guarded by a man detailed for the pur- 
pose. One night while the family were at sup- 
per, this man with them, the gate was by some 
mistake left open. Suddenly the report of a 
gun was heard, which showed that Indians were 
near. Mrs. Harris quickly extinguished every 
light in tbe house and the family was unmolested. 

John Harris is said to have lived on fairly 
good terms with the surrounding Indians ; but 
one thrilling experience of his is among the 
cherished traditions of Harrisburg. It seems 
that a band of roving Indians from the Caro- 
linas halted at his trading post to exchange their 
goods, probably for rum, of which the savages 
had already had too much. They became riot- 
ous in their drunken revelry and demanding 

171 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

more rum were refused by Mr. Harris, who be- 
gan to fear harm from his visitors. Not to be 
denied they again demanded *'Lum," and seiz- 
ing him they took him to a mulberry tree near by 
and bound him to it, intending to bum him after 
they had helped themselves to his stores. Before 
the savages were able to carry out their evil 
designs, some friendly Indians arrived upon the 
scene, having been warned of the danger to his 
master by Hercules, a faithful colored servant 
of Mr. Harris. It is said that these friendly 
Indians had come to the rescue of Mr. Harris 
in consequence of some act of kindness which 
they had received from him. 

The grave of John Harris may be seen on the 
river bank nearly opposite the Cameron house 
and is now enclosed by a railing. He was buried 
under the mulberry tree to which he had once 
been bound, and at his feet rest the remains of 
the faithful Hercules, who had saved his mas- 
ter's life. There are men still living in Harris- 
burg who remember the stump of the historic 
mulberry treewhichresidentsof Harrisburg pre- 
served for years by applying cement and plaster, 
and later a shoot from the original tree flour- 
ished and bore fruit to which children strolling 
along the river bank would stop and help them- 
selves. The grave of a Seneca Half Chief is 
said to be in or near the old Harris lot, but if so 
it is unmarked. The second John Harris, who 

172 



FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

founded the city of Harrisburg, is buried at Pax- 
ton, in the graveyard of the Presbyterian Church. 

John Harris, Jr., must have been a man of 
remarkable foresight and vision, as he seems 
to have grasped the possibilities of the city of 
Harrisburg and is said to have predicted that 
it would become the center of business in this 
section and in time the seat of government' 
of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Harris was a patriotic American, but 
when the question of the independence of the 
Colonies was agitated he hesitated, as did John 
Dickinson and other patriots, feeling that so 
radical a measure was somewhat premature and 
doubting the ability of the Colonies to with- 
stand the power of Great Britain. When, how- 
ever, the Declaration was adopted, his son, Rob- 
ert Harris, said that his father took him and his 
mother aside and read to them the Declaration 
''from a Philadelphia newspaper." When he 
concluded it, he said : ' ' The act is now done ; I 
must take sides either for or against our 
country. The war in which we are engaged can- 
not be carried on without money. We have 3000 
pounds in the house, and if you are agreed I 
will take the money to Philadelphia and put it 
into the hands of Robert Morris to carry on the 
war. If we succeed in obtaining our indepen- 
dence, we may lose the money, as the Govern- 
ment may not be able to pay it back, but we will 

173 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

get our land. ' ' She agreed, and he carried the 
money to Philadelphia and deposited it in 
the Treasury.^ 

There is a story to the effect that the elder 
Harris built the substantial stone mansion still 
standing near Harris Park, but the date of its 
erection, 1771, which is given on the capstone, 
entirely controverts that theory. This house, 
built by John Harris, Jr., may have been upon 
the foundation of the old Harris house with its 
stockade. It remained in possession of the Har- 
ris family until about 1838, when it was pur- 
chased by Col. Thomas Elder and, at his death, 
by the Rev. Beverly R. Waugh for the use of 
the Pennsylvania Female College, of which he 
was principal. Finally the executors of the Rev- 
erend Waugh 's estate sold the house to Simon 
Cameron, who remodeled it, and with so much 
taste that it presented much the same appear- 
ance as the original building. If these ancient 
walls could speak, they would have many 
an interesting tale to tell, as the house 
passed through many hands. It was, at one 
time owned by Mr. Jacob M. Haldeman, a 
grandson of Jacob Haldeman, of Neufchatel, 
Switzerland, the founder of the American fam- 
ily. Mr. Jacob M. Haldeman, after being en- 
gaged in the iron business with great success, 

^ " History of the Cumberland Valley," by Harriet Wylie 
Stewart. 

174 




r^^' 



Haldeman-Cameron House, Front Street, Harrisburg 



FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

made his home in Harrisburg. Mrs. Haldeman, 
a daughter of Samuel Jacobs, was born at Mount 
Hope Furnace, Lancaster County. I was glad 
to see the old mansion again, as it had an espe- 
cial interest to me. My earliest recollection of 
Harrisburg is of a stop overnight at Mrs. Halde- 
man ^s with my father, who was a warm friend 
of the Haldeman family. Mr. Haldeman was 
not living at this time ; but his widow impressed 
my childish mind as the most wonderful old 
lady I had ever seen and the most elaborately 
dressed. Mrs. William Haly, Mrs. Haldeman 's 
married daughter, took me under her especial 
care and fascinated me by the quickness with 
which she moved, her ready wit and warmth of 
manner like an Irish woman, she seemed then 
and ever after, a little woman with a laughing 
face, a bright color in her cheeks, and with the 
smallest feet I had ever seen on a grown woman. 
I remember making her laugh when I asked her 
if a pair of slippers by her bedside belonged 
to a child. Mr. William Haly, I have heard, had 
a most tragic death, having perished in a fire in 
a hotel in Philadelphia many years since. 

One afternoon some of my friends took me 
through the fine park and by the reservoir which 
furnishes the town with an abundant supply 
of pure water. Another afternoon we motored 
to Marietta, south of Harrisburg on the Sus- 
quehanna, a pretty old town, with the houses 

12 175 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

quite near the street after the Pennsylvania 
fashion. They tell us that the houses were so 
placed in pioneer days as a protection against 
the Indians, and this was the reason given us 
for the same placing of the houses in the old 
French-Canadian villages. There the houses, 
close together and near the road, extended for 
miles, the garden and sometimes large farms 
lying back of them for some distance. A good 
reason this, for an arrangement that did not 
add to the beauty of the town, safety being of 
more importance than beauty. 

Some hours, one morning, we spent in the 
Capitol, and although we had seen it many times 
we were impressed as never before with the 
noble proportions of the entrance hall and ro- 
tunda and with the infinite care that had been 
taken with the selection of rare marbles and 
woods from all parts of the world. Some of the 
heavy elaborate chandeliers in the Hall of Eep- 
resentatives we would cheerfully have dis- 
pensed with, and we were glad to turn from 
them to admire again Miss Violet Oakley's 
interesting mural paintings in the Governor's 
reception room. 

Beautiful as are the Capitol, the State Li- 
brary and other new buildings in Harrisburg, 
my chief interest was in the old homes which are 
associated so closely with the history of the state 
and the nation. Among these is the Maclay 

176 



FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

house on Front Street, as this lovely drive and 
promenade is called. Mr. William Maclay, first 
United States Senator from Pennsylvania, was 
the owner of this fine house with its Colo- 
nial portico, and lived here during Washing- 
ton's administration and for many years after. 
Mr. Maclay married a daughter of John Harris, 
Jr., and is said to have helped his father-in-law 
to lay out the city of Harrisburg. This gentle- 
man naturally wished the national capital to 
be placed in his own state, in Harrisburg pref- 
erably, and when he found that the choice of the 
President and Cabinet was tending toward the 
ten-mile square on the Potomac, he expressed 
himself with much bitterness and not a little 
dry humor. Many other public men shared Mr. 
Maclay 's views with regard to the placing of 
the capital, and it is not strange that this state, 
whose chief city had been the scene of the most 
important legislation during the Revolution, 
and whose able financiers, Robert Morris and 
Thomas Willing, had supplied the Commander- 
in-Chief with the sinews of war, should have 
been favorably considered in this connection. 
President Washington came in for a full share 
of criticism at the hands of the Pennsylvania 
Senator, being, as he thought, too much under 
the influence of Alexander Hamilton, who, to 
Mr. Maclay 's mind, represented the arch-enemy 
of true democracy. Indeed, Senator Maclay 's 

177 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

expressions with regard to the President are 
so violent that we wonder now that he took the 
risk of confiding them to his diary. On one occa- 
sion he exclaimed: ''If there is treason in the 
wish, I retract it; but would to God this same 
General Washington was in heaven ! We would 
not have brought him forward as the constant 
cover to every unconstitutional and unrepub- 
lican act." 

This in itself was an indirect compli- 
ment to the character of Washington, as it 
plainly revealed this Senator's opinion as to 
the final destination of the much-criticized 
Chief Executive. 

When Mr. Maclay realized that the location 
of the national capital was bound up with the 
Assumption Bill, and that the President had 
been inoculated with the ''funding disease," he 
exclaimed in hot indignation: "Alas that the 
affection — nay, almost admiration — of the peo- 
ple should meet so unworthy a return ! Here are 
their best interests sacrificed to the vain whim 
of fixing Congress and a great commercial town 
(so opposite to the genius of the Southern 
planter) on the Potomac," etc. 

According to Mr. Jefferson's statement in 
his ' ' Anas, ' ' the site of the capital was not really 
decided in Congress, but over the Virginia 
statesman's dinner-table. It may have been to 
this dinner that Mr. Maclay referred when he 

178 



FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

wrote in his New York diary, July 20, 1790: 
' ' There was a dinner this day which I had no no- 
tice of, and never thought of such a thing. ' ' Mr. 
Jefferson, then Secretary of State, had recently 
returned from abroad. Colonel Hamilton met 
him in front of the President's house, and as 
the two walked up and down the street together, 
Hamilton explained to Jefferson the strained 
relations between the North and South. If, he 
argued, the North accepted the bill for the as- 
sumption of the domestic debt and secured the 
'' residence of the capital" for a northern city, 
Mr. Hamilton clearly saw before the country 
dangers and difficulties, even the secession of the 
Southern states ; while, on the other hand, if the 
war debt of twenty millions were not assumed 
by the general government, it was feared that 
the Eastern or creditor states might secede from 
the federation. Plainly, a compromise was nec- 
essary in the opinion of the wise and far-seeing 
Hamilton. Mr. Jefferson pleaded ignorance of 
the matter, as he had been abroad. He would, 
he said, be pleased if Colonel Hamilton would 
dine with him the next day, meet a few Vir- 
ginians and discuss the question calmly over 
Madeira and punch. Like many other important 
matters, the site of the capital was decided over 
a glass of wine, for before the guests quitted 
the table a compromise was agreed upon, and 
in this case one that the nation has never had 
reason to regret. 

179 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

And thus, Avhether for good or ill, Harris- 
burg lost its chance of being the capital of the 
Republic, and Mr. Maclay's animadversions 
were all to no purpose. His fine old house still 
stands on the river bank, but is no longer in the 
possession of the Maclays. A daughter of Sen- 
ator Maclay married Dr. Henry Hall ; their son, 
William Maclay Hall, a lawyer, laid out Lewis- 
town and became one of the brilliant advocates 
of the Juniata Valley. Mr. Hall afterwards 
studied for the ministry and for some years 
presided over the Presbyterian Church in Bed- 
ford, Pennsylvania. 

An evening in Harrisburg never forgotten 
by those who were in the confidence of the chief 
actors in the drama was that of February 22, 
1861. Governor Curtin, Colonel Alexander K. 
McClure and Major William B. Wilson have all 
given graphic and interesting descriptions of 
that eventful afternoon and evening, when Mr. 
Lincoln and his party were on their way to 
Washington. The story, as they told it, is known 
to many persons, but within a few months the 
diary of Miss Margaret Williams, who was with 
her father in Harrisburg at this time, has come 
into my hands, and while agreeing in all points 
with the account given by the other raconteurs, 
adds some intimate, human touches that could 
only come from the pen of a woman. 

Miss Williams is the daughter of the Hon. 

180 



FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

Thomas Williams, of Pittsburgh, an able law- 
yer and an eloquent speaker, a member of the 
State Legislature in 1861 and among those ap- 
pointed to accompany Mr. Lincoln to Washing- 
ton. She and her sister Agnes, afterwards the 
wife of Henry Pemberton Senior, of Philadel- 
phia, were naturally the recipients of many 
courtesies, which Miss Williams speaks of so 
modestly in her charming narrative. 

Of the reception of the Presidential party 
in Harrisburg, after leaving Philadelphia in 
the morning and making short stops at Lan- 
caster and other towns en route. Miss Wil- 
liams says : 

' ' Harrisburg was reached at two o 'clock, the 
arrival being announced by firing a salute, and 
as the President-elect appeared on the platform 
he was greeted with enthusiastic applause and 
immediately conducted to the waiting barouche 
with six white horses. Reaching the Jones 
House, on the Square, he went to the bal- 
cony and was introduced to the people by 
Governor Curtin in the presence of more 
than five thousand. ' ' 

During the reception ' ' which took place in the 
parlors of the Hotel, after that in the Hall of 
the Representatives, Colonel Sumner presented 
to us the young men of the party, and Mrs. 
Lincoln asked to have us introduced to her, and 
then invited us, through my father, to join the 

181 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

party for Washington. We had each passed our 
twentieth milestone, and, of course, were thrilled 
with the prospect, and accepted the invitation 
with pleasure and expected to leave Harrisburg 
with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and party the follow- 
ing morning at nine o 'clock for Baltimore. ' ' 

While Miss Williams and her sister were 
making their plans for the next day, a very im- 
portant dinner was being given to Mr. Lincoln 
by Governor Curtin. He and Colonel McClure 
both spoke of this dinner as a very dismal affair, 
the conversation turning on the President's trip 
to Washington the next day, and the warnings 
that had been given of a plan to assassinate Mr. 
Lincoln at Baltimore. Of this dinner and the 
events following it, Colonel McClure says : 

'^ Dinner was hastily served, when the ser- 
vants were cleared from the dining-hall, and 
Governor Curtin stated the facts to the dining 
guests, and insisted that Lincoln's programme 
should be changed. Every one present promptly 
responded in approval, and the only silent man 
at the table was Lincoln. I sat near enough to 
him to watch and study his face, and there was 
not a sign of agitation upon it, and when he was 
called upon to give his views it was at once made 
evident to all that he thought much more of com- 
manding the respect and honor of the nation 
than of preserving his life. His answer was 
substantially and, I think exactly, in these 

182 



FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

words : 'I cannot consent. What would the na- 
tion think of its President stealing into its Capi- 
tol like a thief in the night? ' Scott was a master 
alike in keenness of perception and swiftness 
of execution. He at once directed the Governor 
to take Lincoln down to the front of the hotel, 
where there were multitudes awaiting to cheer 
them, and loudly call a carriage to take them to 
the Executive Mansion, as that would be the 
natural place for them to go. They entered the 
carriage, drove up along the river front toward 
the Executive Mansion and then made a detour 
to reach the depot in thirty minutes, as in- 
structed by Colonel Scott. I accompanied Col- 
onel Scott to the depot, where he first cleared the 
track of his line to Philadelphia, forbidding any- 
thing to enter upon it until released, and with 
his own hands cut all of the few telegraph wires 
which then came into Harrisburg. A locomotive 
and a car were in readiness at the time ap- 
pointed a square below the depot, where Lincoln 
and Curtin arrived with Colonel Lamon, and 
Lincoln and Lamon entered the car for their 
journey. When I shook hands with Lincoln and 
wished him God's protection on his journey, 
he was as cool and deliberate as ever in his life. ' ' 
This special train came into West Philadel- 
phia about 10 o'clock. Only one person in Phila- 
delphia was advised of Mr. Lincoln's move- 
ments and that was Superintendent Kenney, of 

183 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore 
Eailroad, who met Mr. Lincoln and Colonel La- 
mon in a carriage with the intention of taking 
them unobserved to the regular night train for 
Washington a few minutes before the time of its 
departure from the depot of the Philadelphia, 
Wilmington and Baltimore Eailroad at Broad 
and Washington Avenue. But when it was seen, 
on the arrival of Mr. Lincoln at West Philadel- 
phia, that there would be nearly an hour before 
the train for the national capital would leave 
the downtown depot, the driver of the carriage, 
which evidently had come across the old Market 
Street bridge, and which contained Mr. Lincoln, 
Colonel Lamon and Pinkerton on the inside, 
Kenney riding with the driver on the box seat, 
was ordered to take a roundabout course with 
the purpose of consuming time. Many highly- 
exaggerated stories have been circulated of the 
events of this night, which were quite dramatic 
enough without embellishment. The fact, as 
stated by those who knew most about it, is 
simply that Mr. Lincoln and Colonel Lamon, to- 
gether with Pinkerton, walked to the sleeper and 
got into it without being known to anybody, 
and the train, which the conductor had been in- 
structed to hold until he heard from Manager 
Kenney, pulled out of the station only five min- 
utes late. Seven hours later, or at 6 o'clock 
the next morning, it was in Washington, and 

184 



FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

then, telegraphic comnmiiication having been 
restored, a despatch of four words in cipher to 
Colonel Scott informed the rest of the Presi- 
dential party in Harrisburg and the railroad 
men who were in the secret, that all had gone 
well. The message as agreed upon was ; ' ' Plums 
delivered nuts safely. ' ' 

Miss Williams and her sister knew nothing 
of the change of plans until the next morning, 
when she says: ''On Saturday morning, the 
twenty-third, at the appointed hour, by the 
scheduled time, Mrs. Lincoln, her three sons, 
Robert Tadd, William Wallace and Thomas, 
familiarly called Bob, Willie and Tad, Colonel 
Ellsworth, Captain Pope, Judge Davis. Mr. 
Hay, Mr. Nicolay, my father and other members 
of the committee, left Harrisburg, we accom- 
panying them, with Colonel Sumner as major- 
domo. On reaching Baltimore a dreadful-look- 
ing mob, called 'the Plug Uglies,' collected 
about the train peering into the windows and 
calling for 'Lincoln. ' Finding he was not there, 
a call went forth for 'Bob,' who, with courage 
commanding admiration from all, including the 
mob, appeared on the platform. I recall that 
the three young men, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Nicolay 
and Mr. Hay, were armed with revolvers lest 
need therefor should occur. We all dined at 
the Eutaw House in Baltimore, driving from the 
station in an omnibus. My father, on taking 

186 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

off his hat to bow, was reproved by a member 
of the party, who said, 'Put on your hat, Mr. 
Williams ; you might be taken for the President 
and shot!' Arriving in Washington that eve- 
ning Mr. Seward met the guests at the station, 
and I was put by Colonel Sumner into the car- 
riage with Mrs. Lincoln and Mr. Seward. Upon 
protesting that this was not my place, I was told 
*it was all right,' and off we drove. Mrs. Lin- 
coln was kind and agreeable, Mr. Seward grave, 
and in my youth and inexperience I thought him 
unresponsive or absent-minded. Later, realiz- 
ing his responsibility, I more than forgave him. 

*'At Willard's, parlor No. 6, with a spacious 
suite of apartments, had been hastily prepared 
for the guests early the preceding day, and on 
reaching the hotel, Mrs. Lincoln took me with 
her to the parlor, where we found Mr. Lincoln 
in an armchair, with the two children, Willie 
and Tad, climbing joyously over him — a beauti- 
ful picture which still lingers in my memory. ' ' 

Miss Williams says that Mr. Lincoln asked 
her to sing, and upon enquiring what he would 
like, he said ''something sad." She chose a 
little song called "Alone" that she had heard 
sung by Miss Ella Stewart in Pittsburgh, but 
which she had never seen in print, to which she 
had improvised an accompaniment. ' ' The song 
was sad," she says, "but not so sad as Mr. 
Lincoln's face, v/hich was indeed the saddest I 

186 



FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

have ever seen, though when he smiled it was 
one of the most attractive." 

In the evening there was a reception at Wil- 
lard's when, at Mrs. Lincoln's request, Miss 
Williams and her sister Agnes assisted her in 
receiving, as did Senator Simon Cameron's 
daughters, Jennie and Margaret, afterwards 
Mrs. Wayne McVeagh and Mrs. Richard J. 
Haldeman. Miss Williams gives a description 
of the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln and of the 
ball in the evening, the latter of especial value 
because so little was said of the Inaugural Ball 
in the newspapers at the time, and it has even 
been stated that there was no ball. That there 
was a ball is proved by Miss Williams ' descrip- 
tion and by that of Mr. Seward, in his auto- 
biography, which agrees in the main with Miss 
Williams' account, although lacking certain 
personal details. 

In describing the day that meant so much to 
the nation. Miss Williams says: ''Monday, 
March the fourth, was, as the day grew older, 
bright and sunny. Before going to the inau- 
guration my sister and I waited at the hotel to 
see Mr. Lincoln start for the Capitol, accom- 
panied by Mr. Buchanan. As personal guests 
of the President-to-be, my father and we girls 
enjoyed a close view of the impressive cere- 
monies; we heard the famous inaugural ad- 
dress and saw the venerable Chief Justice Taney 

187 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

administer the oath of office to Mr. Lincohi, as 
he had done to his seven predecessors, Van 
Buren, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce 
and Buchanan. 

' * In the evening we attended the ball held in 
a temporary building erected for the purpose 
on Judiciary Square. It has been said that there 
was no ball on that evening, and many of the 
newspapers of the following days are silent on 
the subject. My formal invitation, with its long 
list of Committees of Arrangements, I still have, 
as well as my Dance Programme. ' ' 

It is a curious coincidence that this historic 
ball should have been overlooked by most of 
Mr. Lincoln's biographers. Mr. Seward, in 
speaking of it, says : * ' There was no crowd, little 
dancing and, one might say, little gayety. The 
guests assembled were, for the most part, re- 
fined, well-dressed people with a more serious 
air than is usual on occasions of festivity. Many 
of those who attended, like those who had sub- 
scribed, did so because it was an opportunity to 
display fidelity to the Union. Of course, the 
chief topic of the conversation was about 
the Inaugural. ' ' 

After the ball, Miss Williams says that her 
father returned to Harrisburg, and she and her 
sister remained in Washington under the care 
of Senator Cameron's family. 

The Camerons, both father and son, were 

188 



FROM CARLISLE TO HARRISBURG 

probably more in Washington than in their own 
city for some years, as they at different times 
represented Pennsylvania in the Senate of the 
United States, and in addition to this they both 
held important Cabinet positions, and yet the 
name of Cameron belongs distinctly to Harris- 
burg, in common with such other old names as 
Haldeman, Pearson, Espy, Findlay, Shunk, Al- 
ricks, Dock, Forster, Elder, Hamilton and Sar- 
gent. The Hon. Simon Cameron was Mr. Lin- 
coln's Secretary of War, and his son, James 
Donald Cameron, or ^' Don Cameron," as he was 
so generally called that his full name was un- 
known to many persons, held the same position 
in the Grant administration. Both the Cam- 
erons were men of much ability and born lead- 
ers, as appears from many incidents in their 
careers. During his residence in Washington, 
a warm friendship grew up between ' ' Don Cam- 
eron" and the New England historian, Henry 
Adams. These two men were probably drawn to 
each other on accomit of their dissimilarity, each 
one in a way representing a type of his own 
section. However this may be, Mr. Adams spent 
much time with the Cameron family in Wash- 
ington and on their estate in Scotland. 

After getting off one of his remarkable para- 
graphs on the Pennsylvania mind, for which 
Mr. Adams expressed some admiration on ac- 
count of its practical ability, he then summed 

189 ' 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

up the characteristics of Senator Cameron: 
"Perhaps it [his mind] owed life to Scotch 
blood; perhaps to the blood of Adam and Eve, 
the primitive strain of man ; perhaps only to the 
blood of the cottager working against the blood 
of the townsman ; but whatever it was one liked 
it for its simplicity." ^ 

Would Senator Cameron, himself, have been 
likely to count simplicity his leading character- 
istic? Certainly higher encomiums have been 
paid to the character and ability of this states- 
man, but none quite so picturesque as that from 
the pen of the New England historian. To the 
Charms of Mrs. Cameron, Mr. Adams pays the 
following glowing tribute : ' ' Senator Cameron, 
of Pennsylvania, had married in 1880 a young 
niece of Senator John Sherman, of Ohio, thus 
making an alliance of dynastic importance in 
politics, and in society a reign of sixteen years, 
during which Mrs. Cameron and Mrs. Lodge led 
a career without succession as the dispensers of 
sunshine over Washington." 

^ " The Education of Henry Adams," p. 332. 



IX 
WESTWARD HO! TO PITTSBURGH 

I HAD been reading about the experiences of 
Mr. Prolix during his trip to the West, and as I 
sped along in one of the luxurious cars of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad, I could not help con- 
trasting the present methods of travel with 
those of 1836. Mr. Prolix had come by a canal 
boat from Columbia, the terminus of the new 
railroad, and up the eastern bauk of the Susque- 
hanna, by the pretty town of Marietta to Dun- 
can ^s Island, only stopping a half hour at 
Harrisburg to take on and let off passengers. 
In those days the west-bound travelers stopped 
over night at Mrs. Duncan 's on the island of the 
same name. This large island, sixteen miles 
west of Harrisburg, at the junction of the Sus- 
quehanna and the Juniata Rivers, was once the 
home of the Shawnese and the site of a large 
Indian village. Here the first John Harris at- 
tempted to establish a trading station, but Chief 
Shikellamy objected and even appealed to the 
Provincial Council, upon which Harris with- 
drew, thus saving his scalp in all probability j 

13 191 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

others less wise lost theirs at the same place, 
some years later. 

Mr. Prolix was probably too busy getting the 
cinders out of his eyes, of which the travelers at 
that time complained so bitterly, to give his 
attention to tales of Indian adventure. He, how- 
ever, had recovered his good nature sufficiently 
to describe this island hostelry as a ''spacious 
mansion where passengers were accommodated 
for the night or with meals." The next morn- 
ing another packet boat took the passengers 
along the Juniata, passing Millerstown, Mexico, 
and Mifflin, arriving, before sunset of an August 
day, at Lewistown, a distance of forty miles. 
This town had about sixteen hundred inhabi- 
tants, some of whom he said made excellent beer, 
and after testing its excellence the forty pas- 
sengers on the boat took to their cabins for the 
night, and after passing Waynesburg and 
Hamiltonville, they were at Huntingdon early 
the next morning. The journey to Huntingdon 
seems to have occupied the best part of a day 
and night, progress being slow, at the rate of 
three and a half miles an hour, which gave Mr. 
Prolix plenty of time to observe his fellow- 
travelers, who, as he said, "presented as many 
specimens of natural history as the ark of Noah. 
The cabin in which the passengers ate their 
meals and spent their days, was turned into a 
dormitory by night, there being three tiers of 

192 



WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 

berths in which thirty-six persons could be 
accommodated. Abaft the cabin was tlie kitchen 
in which an emancipated or escaped slave from 
Maryland or Virginia usually was the cook; 
the meals were pronounced good, the cost vary- 
ing between twenty-five cents as the minimum 
and thirty-seven and a half cents or three levies, 
as the maximum. ' ' ^ He who complains of the 
discomforts of travel in our well-appointed cars 
may find grounds for contentment with his lot 
by reflecting upon the experiences of Mr. Prolix 
and his human menagerie all cooped up in one 
cabin. Another drawback to this method of 
travel was that the surpassingly beautiful scen- 
ery along the route could not be enjoyed to any 
extent by the travelers on the canal, as their 
only promenade was the roof of the cabin, where 
every step was taken at the risk of decapita- 
tion by the bridges under which the boat passed 
at short intervals. The tourists were assured 
that this accident did not often happen, inas- 
much as the man at the helm was constantly on 
the watch and would give notice of the danger by 
crying out "bridge!" Even in view of this 
warning there must have been a sense of in- 
security about these promenades on deck, which 
interfered with a serene enjoyment of the beau- 
ties of nature. 

I "Peregrinations Tlirough the Pleasant Parts of Penn- 
sylvania," by Peregrine Prolix. 

193 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

The journey from Harrisburg to Huntingdon 
is now made in less than three hours. Hunt- 
ingdon is an interesting old town on the banks 
of the Raystown branch of the Juniata, and one 
of the old stopping places on the way to Bedford 
Springs. The land upon which the town is situ- 
ated was bought by Dr. William Smith, Provost 
of the College of Philadelphia *'for the consid- 
eration of three hundred pounds by deed dated 
March 25th, 1766, to include Hugh Crawford's 
improvements." A year later Doctor Smith 
had a town laid out, which he named Huntingdon, 
in honor of Serena, Countess of Huntingdon, in 
grateful remembrance of her liberal donation to 
the College of Philadelphia, now the University 
of Pennsylvania. The town for many years 
went by the name of Standing Stone Place, or 
Crawfords ; but that rather unwieldly title was 
later given up, and it has for years been known 
by the name given it in memory of the lovely 
and pious Countess of Huntingdon, the liberal 
patroness of George Whitfield. This lady seems 
to have sat lightly to the things of earth, using 
her great wealth for religious and benevolent 
purposes during her lifetime, and leaving her 
fortune for the support of sixty-four chapels 
which she had built. This information was given 
to me by a fellow-traveler who evidently had a 
warm admiration for Lady Serena. She, my 
compagnon de voyage, being intelligent, as well 

194 



WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 

as communicative, enlivenied the journey by re- 
lating to me odd bits of local history. The coun- 
try near Altoona and northward toward BeUe- 
fonte was, she said, full of iron furnaces and 
forges now abandoned. One of these, called 
Sabbath Rest, was noted as being the first fur- 
nace in this region to stop work over Sunday. 
Mr. Bell objected to having his men work on 
Sunday and on trying the experiment of bank- 
ing his furnace for twenty-four hours, and find- 
ing it successful, he adopted this plan with the 
good result of giving the hands a rest over 
Sunday, after which the name of the furnace, 
Elizabeth, was changed to Sabbath Rest. 

Altoona cannot by any stretch of the imagi- 
nation be counted a thing of beauty, and yet the 
Logan House, changed but little in many years, 
always has a friendly look to me, recalling an 
early trip across the mountains to Pittsburgh, 
with a stop-over for refreshments at this house, 
when hot cakes of a superior quality were 
eaten, with dangerous rapidity, between trains. 
No griddle cakes in later years have seemed 
quite as delectable as those so hastily devoured 
at the old Logan House. This house was named, 
according to Doctor Shoemaker, after John 
Logan, a well-known Indian of this region, a son 
of Chief Shikellamy, known as a good Indian. 
Shikellamy named his three sons Logan; why, 
no one knows. It may be that he exchanged 

195 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

names with James Logan of Stenton as did 
Chief Wingohocking. Be this as it may, the 
name of Logan is to be found all through 
western Pennsylvania. 

''James Logan is perpetuated in Clinton 
County," says Dr. H. W. Shoemaker, ''by two 
springs, a run and a gap in Nittany Mountain, 
the village of Loganton and Logan Mills, as well 
as Logan Township, and in Mifflin County by the 
Logan Spring near Reedsville. John Logan, or 
Captain Logan, has^ the Logan Valley, also the 
celebrated old Logan House in Altoona." 

The greatest claim to distinction possessed 
by the Logan House is that here was held an im- 
portant conference of the loyal war governors, 
in September, 1862, at a critical period of the 
Civil War. 

After a short stop at Altoona we sped on- 
ward by the wonderful Horseshoe Curve at Kit- 
tanning Point, a marvellous triumph of engi- 
neering skill, as my companion assured me with 
quite conunendable state pride, and so by Cres- 
son and Ebensburg, both beautiful mountain 
resorts, and very much frequented before the tide 
of summer travel set northward. 

Greensburg, my agreeable and informing 
companion pointed out to me, as a town from 
which many important Pittsburgh families had 
come, a pretty town built on many hills, with 
a town hall whose shining dome makes one think 

196 



WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 

of the famous gilded dome of old Boston. Soon 
after "we steamed into the handsome station 
of East Liberty. I was reminded once more 
that the greatest beauty of this city is to be 
found in its many attractive suburbs, where its 
wise citizens have elected to live away from the 
smoke and dust of this great manufacturing 
center. Spacious mansions and fine lawns are 
to be found in East Liberty, Murray Hill, Se- 
wickley, and other places outside of Pittsburgh. 
And this, my companion told me, was the case in 
the early years of the last century, as the homes 
of Judge Wilkins, Judge Finley, John Woods, 
the Wallaces, the Watsons, Ewarts, Denneys, 
Schenleys, Fosters, and many more prominent 
citizens were situated at Homewood, Braddock, 
Minersville, and Allegheny town, as this large 
city, now a part of Pittsburgh, was once called. 
Judge William Wilkins' house at Homewood, 
built in 1836, was considered the finest piece of 
architecture west of Philadelphia, and near by 
was the old Finley homestead. 

The Homewood Mansion was situated on an 
estate of over six hundred acres, and was sur- 
rounded by extensive grounds, outbuildings and 
gardens. The most attractive feature of this 
fine house, its beautiful classic portico, faced on 
Penn Avenue, with steps leading into the shaded 
lawn. The interior of Homewood was as hand- 
some as the outside, and in the spacious rooms 

197 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

many distinguished guests were entertained, as 
Judge Wilkins, jurist, statesman, diplomat and 
patriot, was one of the leading men of the state. 

Another interesting historic house is Mor- 
ganza, as it was here that Aaron Burr's con- 
spiracy was first suspected by his host, General 
Morgan, whose timely warning prepared Presi- 
dent Jefferson to meet the danger threatening 
the Eepublic. 

The Wallaces are said to have owned the 
oldest habitation in Braddock, and here the 
Marquis de Lafayette was entertained in 1825, 
after visiting Uniontown, Brownsville, the Brad- 
dock Field, and other places in western Penn- 
sylvania. One of the interesting houses which 
belonged to very early days in Allegheny town 
was that of General William Eobinson on Fed- 
eral Street, near the bridge. General Robinson 
was the first Mayor of Allegheny, and so public- 
spirited a citizen that he gave some of the 
property adjoining his lawn for the use of the 
Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad. 
According to family chronicles among the Robin- 
sons, Miss Mary Parker, a daughter of Major 
Alexander Parker, who lived near Carlisle, made 
the long and difficult journey across the Alle- 
gheny Mountains to visit some friends in Pitts- 
burgh. There she met General William Robin- 
son, who feU in love with her, and offered his 
hand and heart, both of :which Miss Parker ac- 

198 



WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 

cepted, and by so doing very cleverly avoided the 
tiresome return trip to her distant home. 

Mr. Brown Parker wrote from Pittsburgh 
on September 7, 1811: "Arrived here this 
day in the mail stage at one o'clock from 
Philadelphia. Put up at the Stage House, the 
best Public House in the Town. Judge Tilghman 
at the same House. . . . Most of the vacant 
ground in and about the Town is owned by a few 
rich men, as Gen. 'Hara, Wilkins, Neville, etc. ' ' 

The home of Mr. Benjamin Page, which is 
still standing in Allegheny, was next to that of 
Mrs. Thomas Barlow where the Marquis de 
Lafayette was entertained. Mr. Oliver Ormsby 
Page, in writing of this visit, says : 

"Lafayette arrived in Pittsburgh on Mon- 
day, the thirtieth of May, 1825, and remained 
here until the following Wednesday. The gen- 
eral and his suite were lodged at Darlington's 
Hotel, comer of Fifth Avenue and Wood Street, 
where the First National Bank buUding now is. 
On the evening of his arrival a grand ball was 
given at Colonel Ramsey's Hotel, at the corner 
of Third Avenue and Wood Street, which must, 
indeed, have been a gala occasion. From one 
of the old invitations we learn that the man- 
agers of this function were Henry Baldwin, 
William Eichbaum, Jr., Trevanion B. Dallas, 
Samuel Pettigrew, David C. Page, Alexander 
Johnston, Jr., James Ross, Jr., Thomas Clay- 

199 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

land, John S. Riddle and William D. Duncan. 
On Tuesday, the second day of his visit, Lafay- 
ette was entertained at luncheon by Mrs. 
Thomas Barlow, at her house, at the northeast 
comer of what is now Stockton Avenue and 
West Diamond Street, in Allegheny town, 
which, with the adjoining mansion of Mr. Ben- 
jamin Page (still standing, being the brick house 
where Mrs. Joseph S. Brown now lives) and 
that of the Reverend Joseph Stockton, at the 
northeast corner of what is now Arch Street, 
were, with the frame meeting-house of the First 
Presbyterian Church, about the only buildings 
in the street at that time. It was extremely 
rural in Allegheny then, and all three houses 
were surrounded by extensive grounds; Mr. 
Page's having a fine garden in the rear. Mrs. 
Barlow, who had known Lafayette in France, 
was the daughter of Mr. Henry Preble, who 
settled in France as an importing merchant, 
and was a niece of Commodore Preble. Her hus- 
band had been secretaiy of legation under 
his uncle, Joel Barlow, minister to France dur- 
ing the administration of President Madison. 
Those invited by Mrs. Barlow to meet the dis- 
tinguished guest were Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Davis, 
Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Page, the Reverend 
Joseph Stockton and Mrs. Stockton, Miss Han- 
nah Davis and Mr. John Morrison. Mr. Page's 
youngest daughter, Martha Harding Page 

200 



WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 

[afterwards Mrs. Charles Scott Brent of Ken- 
tucky] , then nine years old, contributed the fol- 
lowing charming reminiscence of the occasion : 
'About a dozen of the neighboring children, 
dressed in white with pink sashes and wreaths 
of roses on our heads, received him at the gate. 
I remember a tall man stooping to kiss each one 
of us on our foreheads ; then he took the Madam 
by her hands and kissed her on each cheek. 
I remember a commotion, many people; it all 
comes back to me now like a dream; seventy 
years is a long time to look back.' 

''On this same day Lafayette was shown 
through the Pittsburgh Flint Glass Works. 
Levasseur, his secretary, in his published ac- 
count of the voyage, has the following to say in 
this connection: 'After having devoted the day 
of his arrival to public ceremonies, the general 
wished to employ a part of the next day in 
visiting some of the ingenious establishments 
which constitute the glory and prosperity of that 
manufacturing city, which, for the variety and 
excellence of its products deserves to be com- 
pared to our Saint-Etienne or to Manchester 
in England. He was struck by the excellence 
and perfection of the processes employed in the 
various workshops which he examined ; but that 
which interested him above all was the manufac- 
ture of glass, some patterns of which were pre- 
sented to him that, for their clearness and trans- 

201 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

parency, might have been admired even by the 
side of the glass of Baccarat. ' ' '" 

Two beautiful vases, made at the works of 
Messrs. Bakewell, Page and Bakewell, were pre- 
sented to Lafayette. ' * On one of them is shown 
a view of the chateau at La Grange engraved in 
a medallion, and on the other the American 
eagle, likewise in a medallion." These vases, 
which belonged later to a granddaughter of 
Lafayette, were loaned by her to the French 
Commission and exhibited at the World's Fair 
in Chicago in 1893. A letter of thanks from the 
Marquis de Lafayette is still in existence, of 
which the following is a copy : 

Gentlemen : 

The patriotic gratification I have felt at the sight of 
your beautiful manufacture is still enhanced by the friendly 
reception I have met from, you and by the most acceptable 
present you are pleased to offer me. Accept my affection- 
ate thanks, good wishes and regards, 

Lafayette. 

This letter of the Marquis de Lafayette was 
addressed to the firm of Bakewell, Page and 
Bakewell, of which Mr. Benjamin Bakewell was 
a member. Mr. BakewelPs home, Maple Grove, 
was also in Allegheny in a part of the town then 
called Manchester. It was afterwards inherited 
by Mr. Bakewell 's grandson, Mr. Benjamin 
Campbell, and it is about this house and garden, 

^ From magazine article written by Mr. Oliver Ormsby 
Page, in 1895. 

202 



WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 

which were associated with her childhood, that 
Margaret Deland, the novelist, wrote her beau- 
tiful poem, "The Old Garden." 

Once more I see tliee, but forlorn and bare, 
And desolate of human hopes and fears. 
Sagging on rusty hinges hang thy doors, 
And in thy empty rooms no sound is heard 
Save only when upon the echoing floors 
Last autumn's drifted leaves are faintly stin-ed. 
Braiding the darkness of the wide, bare hall. 
The flickering sunshine softly comes and goes, . 
And 'gainst the broken plaster of the wall 
Is blown the shadow of a climbing rose. 

Closed on three sides by crmnblrng walls of brick, 
All spotted by slow-creeping lichen stains. 
And nearly hid by ivy, matted thick, 
And dim with clinging mists of years and rains, 
The Garden lies. 

»*»•♦♦ 

And there the piimrose stands that as the night 
Begins to gather and the dews to fall. 
Flings wide to circling moths her twisted buds. 
That shine like yellow moons with pale, cold glow, 
And all the air her heavy fragrance floods. 
And gives largess to any winds that blow. 

Here, in warm darkness of a night in June, 
While rhythmic pulses of the factories flame 
Lighted with sudden flare of red the gloom. 
And deepened long black shadows, children came 
To watch the primrose blow ! 

Silent they stood. 
Hand clasped in hand, in breathless hush around. 
And saw her shyly doff her soft green hood 
And blossom — with a silken burst of sound ! 

203 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

The Pages, Phillipses and Ormsbys, all re- 
lated by blood or marriage, made quite a little 
settlement of their owti clan in Allegheny town. 
They all lived upon what was then called the 
Second Bank, the descent of the canal forming 
a natural terrace, one bank rising above the 
other. This street has since been named Stock- 
ton Avenue, in honor of the Reverend Joseph 
Stockton whose house and church were on the 
Second Bank. 

The Grmsbys were descended from Captain 
John Ormsby, of Connaught, Ireland, who acted 
as commissary to General Forbes in his expedi- 
tion against Fort Duquesne. Captain Ormsby 
in his diary gives a vivid description of the suf- 
ferings of this army and of the blowing up of 
the fort by the French, and speaks of the in- 
trepid spirit of his commander who was so ill 
that he had to be carried on a litter. * 'You may 
judge," he said, ''our situation when I can as- 
sure you that we had neither flour, flesh meat 
or liquor in store; the only relief offered for 
the present was plenty of bear meat and venison 
which our hunters brought in and which our 
people devoured without bread or salt. There 
were several parcels of pack-horses loaded Avith 
provisions coming up from the inhabited coun- 
try, but the savages seized the most of them and 
murdered the drivers. Our emaciated General 
Forbes was a brave soldier, but was afflicted 
with a complication of disorders." 

204. 



WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 

Oaptain Ormsby also speaks of General 
Stanwix, whose work was to rebuild Fort Du- 
quesne, and of Colonel Bouquet ^s expedition. 
' ' I forgot to mention, ' ' he says, ' ' in the course of 
this narrative in the year 1763, that the murder- 
ing Indians who robbed me and murdered my 
people laid siege to the old fort in Pittsburgh, 
and as I had a house there and a few goods in 
remnants, etc., I chose to stay there and assist 
in defending it from the savages, etc. The vile 
Indians continued to block up our garrison for 
near three months, when Colonel Bouquet was 
ordered to proceed to Pittsburgh at the head of 
about 1500 men, part regulars. The savages, 
having early intelligence of this march, watched 
Bouquet's motions very narrowly until the army 
encamped on a dry ridge within about thirty 
miles of Pittsburgh. Here the savages collected 
all their forces and attacked Bouquet on all sides 
in a furious manner, being sure of their prey as 
they served Braddock. The English army was 
in a wretched situation, as the Indians very art- 
fully secured all the springs of water in that 
neighborhood. Thus they were all day without 
a drop of water but what they sucked out of the 
tracks of beasts, as, happily, a small rain fell. 
As Bouquet in the beginning ordered an encamp- 
ment to be made of the bags, saddles, etc., the 
Indians still advanced that way where the sick 
and wounded lay in a deplorable condition. In 

205 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

this deplorable situation, of the English army a 
certain Captain Barret, who commanded a small 
detachment of Maryland Volunteers, informed 
Bouquet that he and his army would be cut off 
if they followed that mode of fighting. Bouquet 
then agreed to his proposal, which was that a 
quick march should be ordered toward the 
breastwork, which would take up the attention 
of the Indians, while two small squads should 
run around the savages, and upon beating a 
flaen, they should rush up' and give the savages 
a general volley in their rear, which had the de- 
sired effect, for tlie Indians were sure that a 
reinforcement attacked them. They broke up 
and ran and yelped up the hiUs and the English 
in close pursuit of them as far as prudence 
would permit. The English then began their 
march and arrived safe at Pittsburgh next day 
without being molested by the Copper Gentry. 
If Captain Barret had not happily suggested the 
above manoeuvre, the savages intended to storm 
the camp, and very probably would have 
massacred the chief part of the army. ' ' 

After many vicissitudes and adventures Cap- 
tain Ormsby finally settled in Pittsburgh with 
his family as he says, in 1764, "married a Miss 
McCallister, who made me very happy, not only 
in bringing me five beautiful children, but as- 
sisted me with the great industrie to satisfie our 

206 



WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 

creditors and to bring up our children in the 
fear and admonition of God. ' ^ ^ 

It is difficult to believe that scenes such as 
those described by Captain Ormsby were ever 
enacted in the now peaceful and prosperous city 
of Pittsburgh. From earliest times its wonder- 
ful position, at the confluence of two great rivers, 
seems to have marked it as the site of a great 
manufacturing center, and all travelers who 
came here, our friend Prolix among them, 
prophesied for the town a brilliant future. 

Colonel Daniel Broadhead, commander of 
Fort Pitt, said in February, 1780 : 

*'I conceive it [Pittsburgh] will within a few 
years after peace is estabhshed be one of the 
first places of business of any inland town in 
America." The old soldier's words came true 
within a decade. ' 'Agriculture proving unprofit- 
able, the people of Pittsburgh turned their ener- 
gies to manufacturing. Then was the town 
started on the road to prosperity along which it 
has been traveling with such enormous strides 
ever since. This great step was taken largely by 
reason of the immense demand from Kentucky 
and the West for articles of iron, copper, 
brass and other things which Pittsburgh's 
matchless coal deposit made it possible to make 
so advantageously. 

' ' The first largemanufacturing establishments 

'Unpublished Diary of Capt. John Ormsby. 
14 20T 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

in the Pittsburgh district were built in 1784, a 
year which for several reasons is an epochal one 
in its history. Colonel Stephen Bayard and 
Major Isaac Craig, two of the leading men of 
the village, erected a distillery, a saw mill and 
a salt works, the latter on the Big Beaver Creek. 
Another reason why this year is notable is the 
fact that it marks the first laying out of the 
town on a comprehensive scale. Owing to the 
enormous demand for lots, Colonel Woods, sur- 
veyor for the Penns, laid out the entire town 
below Grant and Eleventh Streets, retaining the 
Campbell plot of 1764. The pantograph used by 
him in this important work is now in possession 
of his granddaughter, Miss Mary C. Woods, of 
Hazelwood, this city. 

* 'Some years later GeneralJames 'Hara es- 
tablished his glass works on the South Side near 
the Point bridge. This gallant old soldier, at 
one time Quartermaster General of the United 
States Army, was the leading citizen of Pitts- 
burgh, and as his ventures show, was certainly 
its most enterprising capitalist and merchant. 
* * * General O'Hara was the grandfather 
of the late Mrs. Mary E. Schenley, and the 
founder of the vast Denny and Schenley estates 
of this city. He was one of the most generous 
and public-spirited men of his day. ' ' ^ 

Thus Pittsbur gh, which was spoken of in 

*" History of Pittsburgh," by Hartley M. Phelps. 
208 



WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 

Scott's Gazette of 1795 as "a post town advan- 
tageously situated for carrying' on an extensive 
inland trade with the western country," was 
rapidly developing into the great commercial 
center which it was destined to become early in 
the next century. 

Some hours were spent in the beautiful Car- 
negie Library; indeed, one should never go to 
Pittsburgh for a day without stopping to enjoy 
this wonderful building and its valuable collec- 
tions. An interesting circumstance with regard 
to the founding of this library, and all the others 
that spread their blessings through the land, is 
their raison d'etre. 

It appears that Colonel James Anderson 
opened his private library of four hundred vol- 
umes to the boys of Allegheny on Saturday even- 
ings, when young Carnegie was working twelve 
hours a day for $1.25 a week. He said that he 
looked forward all week to the pleasure of get- 
ting a book at Colonel Anderson's, which he 
could enjoy over Sunday, and then and there he 
vowed that if he ever became rich he would 
found libraries for the people. Later, when 
Andrew Carnegie was the clerk of Mr. Thomas 
A. Scott, at $35 a month, he wondered what on 
earth Mr. Scott could do with the magnificent 
sum of $125 a month that he was receiving as 
Divisional Superintendent of the P. R. R. 

Fortunately Andrew Carnegie 's mind broad- 

209 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

ened with his opportunities, and when great 
wealth came to him he was able to realize the 
dream of his boyhood. ' ' A new era in the city 's 
life was signalized," says an old inhabitant of 
Pittsburgh, '*by the opening in November, 1895, 
of the superb Carnegie Institute, the gift of 
Andrew Carnegie to the people of Pittsburgh. 
This supplied a long-felt need for the facilities 
by which art, science, literature and music could 
be studied and enjoyed. Through the generous 
gifts of Mr. Carnegie, Pittsburgh was supplied 
with a fine system of free libraries. Prior to 
the building of the Allegheny and Pittsburgh 
Carnegie Libraries this city had only one insti- 
tution of any magnitude in this line, the old 
Pittsburgh Library in the Library Hall building 
on Penn Avenue. ' ' 

Educational work of vast importance is now 
being done by the big library in Sohenley Park 
through the distribution of books to clubs in 
homes and elsewhere. The magnificent Phipps 
Conservatory, also in the park, was donated to 
the city about the same time as the Carnegie 
Institute by Henry Phipps, Esq., Mr. Carnegie's 
former partner in the steel business. Thus, 
through the generosity and foresight of some of 
its citizens who have acquired large fortunes in 
Pittsburgh, this great manufacturing city has 
also become an educational center. 

The citizens of Pittsburgh have also been 

210 



WESTWARD HO TO PITTSBURGH 

generous in providing their municipality with 
an admirable system of public parks, of which 
Mr. Phelps says : * ' Beginning with the parking 
of Highland Park in August, 1889, the magnifi- 
cent Schenley Park was acquired a few days 
later, a gift of the late Mrs. Mary E. Schenley. 
Then through the efforts of the Director of 
Public Works, Edward M. Bigelow, who was in- 
strumental in securing these two parks, seven 
others were laid out and beautified in various 
parts of the city. The city now has one thousand 
acres of public pleasure ground. Mr. Bigelow 
also procured for the people Beechwood and 
Grant Boulevards, two fine driveways, affording 
splendid views of the wonderful manufactur- 
ing plants of the city and the latter 's abundance 
of picturesque scenery. ' ^ 

Highland Park, one of Pittsburgh's beautiful 
pleasure grounds, is well named, situated as it 
is on the heights, and from an elevated plateau 
on one side it commands a wonderful view of 
the great city, with its many factories, churches, 
public buildings and handsome homes. From 
this height one can see the meeting of the two 
great rivers, which form a peninsula of the point 
of laud on the end of which Fort Pitt once 
stood, a wonderful panorama and one never to 
be forgotten! 



X 

WASHINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA, AND THE 

BRADDOCK TRAIL 

A PLEASANT party among my friends was 
made up to motor from Pittsburgh to Bedford 
Springs, stopping over night at Washington. 
This stop-over was a concession and made in 
order to give me an opportunity to see this town 
of which I had heard so much. It was after- 
wards decided that two of the party should go 
by trolley, as this route abounds in wild and 
beautiful scenery, and so we found it. After 
crossing the broad Allegheny on a fine bridge, 
we entered a long tunnel, evidently drilled 
through the solid rock, a triumph of engineering 
skill, and then by a bridge that seemed to swing 
in mid-air, from which we looked down on deep 
ravines and abrupt precipices. We concluded 
that this was the nearest approach to an aerial 
flight that could be found on terra firma, so 
high were we above the houses and villages 
in the valleys below us. Later we gained more 
level ground and passed through a number of 
little villages, the unattractive hamlets that be- 
long to most manufacturing regions, after which 
the tram carried us through a rolling, fertile, 
farming country. Near Washington, Canons- 

212 



WASHINGTON AND THE BRADDOCK TRAH. 

burg was pointed out to us as the site of one 
of the earHest western colleges. An English 
school or grammar school, started here in 1791, 
claims the distinction of being the foundation 
of Jefferson College in Philadelphia. This 
school was chartered as an academy in 1794, the 
trustees meeting at the home of Colonel Can- 
non, and James Allison being chosen its 
first president. 

The sums of money contributed towards the 
support of the academy at Canonsburg were 
pitifully small, according to modem ideas, and 
even these pittances were not infrequently paid 
in wheat, rye and linen. The latter contribu- 
tion usually came from women who prepared the 
flax and spun the linen themselves. Tea and 
even whiskey were received in payment of con- 
tributions, the amount all told amounting to 
three hundred and fifty dollars per annum. This 
small sum represented a generous share of the 
earnings of many persons, and spoke more elo- 
quently than words of the devotion to learning 
of that simple, hard-working community. In 
later and more prosperous times, when Jeffer- 
son College succeeded the academy, the salary 
of one of its early presidents ''was advanced" 
to the munificent sum of seven hundred dollars. 
Days of plain living and high thinking were 
these early times in western Pennsylvania! 

The town of Washington was long known as 

213 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Little Washington, a title that its inhabitants 
repudiate now that its population has reached 
over twenty-five thousand. We were told that 
the factory hands here were chiefly Americans, 
in which Washington differs from most Penn- 
sylvania manufacturing towns. An industrial 
center of importance, a busy, prosperous town, 
with many handsome buildings and private resi- 
dences is the Washington of to-day ; but what in- 
terested us more than its present prosperity was 
what is left of the old village, laid out in 1781, 
and claiming to be the first town in the United 
States named after George Washington. 

We soon made our way to Washington and 
Jefferson College and found the old building of 
1793, with its lovely portico and vine-covered 
walls, far more interesting and picturesque than 
the more spacious and well-equipped modern 
buildings. Washington College is really very old, 
having been diartered in 1787, several years 
before Jefferson College in Canonsburg was 
established. Later the two colleges were united, 
* ' after many conferences and much sharpshoot- 
ing of words on both sides," as an early chron- 
icler states, ''in which no one was killed and 
few wounded." 

After spending some time in the fine col- 
lege library and enjoying the beautiful hillside 
campus, we strolled along College Street, with 
its pretty houses all shaded by fine trees, and 

214. 



WASHINGTON AND THE BRADDOCK TRAIL 

then turning into East Maiden Street we were 
in the old part of the town. Passing by a gray 
house there suddenly blazed — I can use no other 
word — a hillside garden of such beauty and 
brilliancy as one may see only under a June 
sun, with roses, poppie^s, larkspur, foxglove, 
ragged robins, phlox and delphiniiuns, all vying 
with each other to create a high festival of color. 

It was my good fortune once to be in Venice 
in June, and to be welcomed to Mrs. Barrett 
Browning's garden, the American daughter- 
in-law of the poet, a garden of white Annuncia- 
tion lilies and old-time sweet pinks. For some 
unaccountable reason these two gardens have 
linked themselves together in my thoughts, and 
if I were a poet I should be writing a poem 
about them, both beautiful, one full of life, color 
and the rich creative spirit of June as it basked 
under its warm sunshine; the other fairy-Uke 
and lovely as I saw it in the afternoon light, but 
with no more wai*mth about it than the saints 
and angels of Fra Angelico 's paintings. It is a 
far cry from that garden of Venice in those days 
of peace and happiness to the distracted and im- 
perilled Venice of this year, 1917, and a still 
further cry back to the safety of our own state 
and the gay garden on Maiden Street. 

While standing by the fence and looking 
longingly at the delights enclosed by it, like two 
Peris at the gate of Paradise, it was sud- 

215 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

denly opened to us, my companion having been 
recognized as a friend of the owner of this 
enchanting spot. The house adjoining the gar- 
den belonged to Doctor Lemoine, a learned man 
and the first advocate for cremation in America. 
When we became enthusiastic over the 
beauty so lavishly spread before us, we were 
told that the suns of a hundred summers and 
the snows of as many winters had conspired to 
bring the garden to its present perfection. As 
we walked joyously among its borders, led from 
flower to flower by the chatelaine, who loaded us 
with flowers, and seeds from rare plants, she 
told us of Little Washington and the men and 
women who had lived here. One tale of especial 
interest to us was that in the Ladies Seminary, 
a little farther along on Maiden Street, Miss 
Rebecca Harding was teaching when she wrote 
her story, ' ' Life in the Iron Mills. ' ' It was read 
and approved by a young editor, Mr. Clark 
Davis, who, after the fashion of old-time editors, 
requested the privilege of corresponding with 
the authoress — editors have no time for such 
amenities nowadays ; they would talk to the lady 
over the long-distance 'phone instead, and there 
would be no romance. The privilege was 
granted ; Miss Harding and Mr. Davis met later, 
fell in love with each other, were married, and 
to them were bom two sons, both writers by 
inheritance, the elder being Richard Harding 

216 



WASHINGTON AND THE BRADDOCK TRAIL 

Davis, whose early stories we loved and whose 
death we mourn as a loss to American literature. 
The aroma of the sweet old story seemed to fit 
in with the fragrance and the charm of the gar- 
den, where Miss Rebecca Harding, a friend of 
the chatelaine, often wandered from flower to 
flower as we wandered on that June day. 

The remainder of our party joined us in an 
auto the next day, when we set forth for Sum- 
mit, passing through a number of old historic 
towns, by Library and Ginger Hill to Bealls- 
ville, where there is a very interesting old tav- 
ern, known in stage-coaching days as the Wil- 
liam Greenfield Stand, now called the National 
Hotel, and still offering hospitality to man and 
beast, the latter being represented to-day by 
the automobile. 

At Brownsville, a few miles farther east, was 
one of the earliest settlements in western Penn- 
sylvania, having been the home of Nemacolon, 
an Indian chief, who guided Colonel Cresap 
across the Alleghenies on his first journey from 
Old Town, Maryland, to the Ohio country, which 
was then considered farther west than anything 
that we know to-day. This path through the 
wilderness was long known as Nemacolon 's 
Route. 

There are now three Brownsvilles, and from 
a hilltop near by these towns, smoky and grimy, 
look like a miniature Pittsburgh. Our way lay 

217 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

through West Brownsville and across the 
Monongahela, which is situated on a tract of 
land known as Indian Hill and includes Krepp 
Knob, now the United States Triangulation Sta- 
tion. This town was the birthplace of James G. 
Blaine, his great-grandfather, Neal Gillespie, 
a native of Ireland, having purchased the Indian 
Hill property. The Blaine homestead has been 
torn down. 

It is rather interesting to know that the 
earliest settler on Indian Hill, William Peter, 
left his home because he failed to agree with his 
German neighbor, Philip Shute. The Govern- 
ment listened to a request made by Peter and 
granted him three hundred and thirty-nine acres 
of land, including Indian Hill, where Browns- 
ville now stands. This was in 1769. 

For many years Brownsville was the head of 
navigation on the Monongahela; and during the 
busy days of the old Pike it was an interior port 
of great importance. Naturally, it became also 
a popular stopping and transfer point for trav- 
elers and there were several famous hotels ; the 
principal one to-day is the Monongahela, in the 
downtown business center, occupying the site 
of an older one of the same name. 

In passing through these old towns of Penn- 
sylvania, we had a curious sensation of the near- 
ness of the past, as Washington was in this part 
of Pennsylvania before and after the Revolu- 

218 



WASHINGTON AND THE BRADDOCK TRAIL 

tionary War. In 1753 he was sent by Governor 
Dinwiddle, of Virginia, when he was only 
twenty-one, to investigate the encroachments of 
the French on the Ohio River. Washington has 
left a very interesting account of this expedition 
in his diary and letters. He spoke of being very 
courteously received by the French ofificers, who 
invited him to dine. Afterwards he said : * ' The 
chief officers retired to hold a council of war, 
which gave me an opportunity of taking the 
dimensions of the fort and making all the ob- 
servations I could. ' ' 

On the return trip, when Washington left 
his escort and horses with Van Braam, he set 
forth with Christopher Gist to make the journey 
home on foot, as the horses had given out from 
overwork and he felt that the information he 
had to give to the Governor was too important 
to be delayed until fresh horses could be found. 
It was upon this journey that in crossing the 
Allegheny on an improvised raft Washington 
and Gist were thrown into the icy river. They 
saved themselves by catching at the logs of the 
raft and finally reached an island where they 
passed the night, shivering in their frozen gar- 
ments. The next day the river was frozen hard 
enough to enable Washington and his companion 
to cross to the left bank on foot, and so they 
reached Frazer's at the mouth of Turtle Creek 
on the Monongahela. While waiting for horses, 

219 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

which it required some time to find, Washington 
wrote: '*I went up about three miles to the 
mouth of the Youghiogheny to visit Queen Ali- 
quippa, who expressed great concern that we 
passed her in going to the fort. I made her a 
present of a match coat and a bottle of rum, 
which latter was thought much the better pres- 
ent of the two." 

Many fanciful stories have been told about 
this Indian Queen, probably without any founda- 
tion in fact. It is evident, however, that she was 
a lady who exacted tribute from passersby, and 
young Washington was fortunate in knowing 
something of her tastes. 

Most of our tour was over the National Road, 
and we were suddenly reminded that the build- 
ing of a great highway to cross the Alleghenies 
and connect the then remote settlements in the 
Ohio Valley with the centers of industry and 
commerce in the East was a favorite plan of 
General Washington's. From his diary we 
learn that in the autumn of 1784, between the 
closing of his military duties and his call to 
the Presidency, he made a tour of exploration 
and inspection from the Potomac to the Ohio. 
From Cumberland to Laurel Hill he passed 
through a region which had been made familiar 
to him thirty years before by marching through 
it on his own campaign of 1753 and '54 and 
with Greneral Braddock in 1755. Arriving at the 

220 



WASHINGTON AND THE BRADDOCK TRAH. 

Youghiogheny, he embarked in a canoe with 
an Indian pilot, and passed down that river to 
Ohio Pile Falls, where he landed, and thence 
rode across the country to the Monongahela and 
up the valley of that river. 

On one occasion, when seated in a hunter's 
cabin near the Virginia line, examining maps and 
asking questions of a number of frontiersmen 
who stood around him relative to the passes of 
the mountains and the adaptability of the 
country for the construction of the road which 
he had in mind, a young man of foreign appear- 
ance who was among the bystanders volunteered 
an opinion indicating a certain route which he 
believed to be the best for the purpose. At this 
interruption Washington regarded the speaker 
with surprise and with something of the im- 
perious look of the Commander-in-Chief, but 
made no reply and continued his examination. 
Upon its completion, the General saw that the 
opinion expressed by the unknown speaker was 
undoubtedly well founded and, turning to him, 
said in a polite but decided way, ''You are right, 
young man ; the route you have indicated is the 
correct one." The young stranger proved to 
be Albert Gallatin, afterwards Secretary of the 
Treasury of the United States and one of the 
principal promoters of the construction of the 
great National Road to the Ohio. It was here 
that Washington first formed the acquaintance 

221 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

of. Gallatin, a friendship that continued during 
the lifetime of the Chief. ^ 

Albert Gallatin owned a country home on the 
right bank of the Monongahela about twelve 
miles south of Uniontown, which accounts for 
his sudden appearance among the frontiersmen 
whom Washington was consulting. 

From the upper Monongahela Washington 
passed through the county of AVashington to the 
Ohio Eiver. Four years later he was elected 
President of the United States, and during the 
eight years of his administration he continued 
a steadfast and earnest advocate of the project 
of a great highway to be constructed by the 
Government across the Alleghenies for the pur- 
pose of binding more firmly together the eastern 
and western sections of the United States. 

The beginning of many of the old western 
Pennsylvania towns was the tavern or inn, the 
wayside inn being greatly in request in stage- 
coaching days, as it is destined to be in these 
touring times. Then it was not considered be- 
neath the dignity of gentle folk to keep these 
hostelries, consequently we find many good old 
Pennsylvania names associated with its taverns. 

We passed a number of old taverns between 
Brownsville and UniontowTi, Brubaker's, The 
Red Tavern and the famous Searight House, a 
large stone building on the north side of the road 

^ " History of Washington County." 
222 




Friendship Hill, Former Home of Hon. Albert Gallatin, near 
Uniontown 




Ben Lomond, Built 1785 by Henry Beeson, Founder of Uniontown 



WASHINGTON AND THE BRADDOCK TRAIL 

about halfway between Uniontown and Browns- 
ville; it was built by Josiali Frost about the 
time the National Road was constructed and 
acquired by William Searight in 1821. "Lo- 
cated at an important cross-road, this was in the 
olden times one of the noted taverns along the 
road — not only a popular place for social ac- 
tivities, but also a sort of political center for 
Uniontown, Connellsville and Brownsville. The 
original William Searight was road commis- 
sioner on the old Pike for many years; at his 
death his son, Ewing Searight, came into pos- 
session of the property and rented it to various 
persons who conducted a tavern, and ran it two 
years himself. His son William used it as a 
private residence until his death; it is now 
owned by Searight McCormick, a grandson of 
Ewing Searight, and occupied as a pri- 
vate residence." 

A number of handsome residences and fine 
grounds skirt the National Road, among them 
the Ben Lomond, built by Jacob Beeson, one of 
the founders of Uniontown, in 1785, and 
later the residence of Daniel Moore and L. 
W. Stockton. 

Beyond the railroad, the trolley turns to the 
left, while the Pike keeps straight on, past a 
number of fine residences. To the right is the 
Uniontown Hospital, and just beyond we passed 
Oak Grove Cemetery, where one can see from 

15 223 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

the street the grave of Thomas B. Searight, 
author of ''The Old Pike." 

*'Mr. Searight spent practically his whole 
life along the National Eoad, and wrote largely 
from the personal, human side, as no historian 
of the present day could hope to do. No other 
work on the subject gives so great an insight into 
the Old Pike days ; the book is now practically 
out of print, though available in most large 
libraries. At his request, Mr. Searight was bur- 
ied as close as possible to the old road he had 
studied so long and known so well. ' ' 

''Uniontown, the first place of importance 
west of the Allegheny Mountains on this route, 
is a small but very enterprising and prosperous 
city, depending now, as for nearly a hundred 
years past, largely upon the National Pike for 
direct connections East and West." ^ 

From plans still preserved in Uniontown it 
appears that Washington not only owned prop- 
erty about fifteen miles north of Uniontown, but 
drew a plan for a town very much like that used 
later for the capital on the Potomac, On this 
chart is a central ' ' diamond, ' ' and streets radi- 
ating from it very much as they do in the beau- 
tiful city of Washington. Notliing seems to 
be left of the projected town, which was named 
Perryopolis, except an old mill which Washing- 
ton had built as an important part of his town. 

""The National Road," by Robert Bruce. 
224 



WASHINGTON AND THE BRADDOCK TRAIL 

We afterwards passed through Uniontown 
on our way to Summit, where we spent the night 
at a hotel situated on the tiptop of a mountain. 
In the woods, a short distance from the Summit 
Hotel, are the Washington Springs, the place 
of G-eneral Braddock's tenth encampment, 
according to Mr. Lacock: ''This Indian camp 
was in a strong position, being upon a high rock 
with the very narrow and steep ascent to the 
top. It had a spring in the middle and stood at 
the termination of the Indian path to the Monon- 
gahela, at the confluence of Red Stone Creek. ' ' ^ 

It was near this spring that Washing-ton sur- 
prised a party of French and Indians under 
Jumonville, killing the latter and several of his 
men and carrying the others off captive. This 
engagement, preceding as it did the surrender at 
Fort Necessity and Braddock's defeat, as 
Francis Parkman says, ''began the war that 
set the world on fire ! " 

The next day we came again upon traces of 
Washington, as Fort Necessity, where he sur- 
rendered to a superior force of French and 
English, can be seen from the National Road. 
This was July 4, 1754. A tablet erected by the 
Centennial Celebration Committee in 1904 
marks the spot where the old stockade stood. 
This place was long known as Great Meadows. 
And over a road running a short distance south 

^ Robert Orme's Journal. 

225 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

of the National Road, General Braddock passed 
in June, 1755, with two picked British regiments, 
young Washington being on his staff. Before 
reaching Great Meadows, Washington was 
taken ill with a fever and was ordered by his 
general to stop for rest at the ford of the Yough- 
iogheny. This name, difficult to unaccustomed 
tongues, is Indian, of course, and was probably 
the Youghhannie, meaning Four Streams, refer- 
ring to the Monongahela and its three branches 
at Turkey Foot. The Youghiogheny is now 
spanned by a substantial three-arched bridge on 
which is a bronze tablet recording the fact that 
Washington had crossed this stream three times. 
This place which he always spoke of in his let- 
ters as Big Crossings is now Somerfield, and 
the roadside inn, now called the Youghiogheny 
House, was formerly the Endsley House. 
Young Colonel Washington remained here at 
the ford much against his will, having extracted 
a promise from his general that he should be 
allowed to join the army before it reached Fort 
Duquesne, for as he wrote to his friend, Rob- 
ert Orme, he would not miss the impending bat- 
tle for five hundred pounds. His fever hav- 
ing somewhat abated, through the efficacy of 
Dr. James' Pills, as he wrote to his mother, or 
because of his iron constitution, but being still 
too weak to sit on his horse he was conveyed to 
the front in a wagon and in the nick of time, 

226 



WASHINGTON AND THE BRADDOCK TRAIL 

as the next day, July 9th, the troops forded the 
Monongahela and attacked the fort. 

Doctor Franklin and Washington, both of 
whom knew sometliing of the methods of In- 
dians, had warned General Braddock of the 
danger of a surprise, the latter receiving a 
severe rebuke as an answer to his warning. 
When the surprise came from French and In- 
dians ambushed, the young Virginian again 
begged the General to throw his men into the 
woods but all in vain. Fight in platoons they 
must or not at all, says Lodge. The result was 
they did not fight at all. Braddock was mor- 
tally wounded and his troops broke into a wild 
rout and fled. Even now we cannot think of this 
battle without a quickening of the pulses. The 
experienced General, carrying on the attack, 
according to British tactics, successful in other 
wars, but not adapted to the situation, while the 
young soldier, his eyes shining with the fierce 
light of battle, led on his own Virginia troops 
in a gallant but futile effort to stay the tide of 
disaster. It was in this battle that Washington 
had two horses shot under him and four bullets 
through his coat. 

This oft-repeated tale must be true, as it 
comes from a letter written by Washington to 
his mother soon after the battle, and we doubt 
his ever telling that stem Virginia matron any- 
thing but the exact truth, as she, herself, at the 

227 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

height of his fame, when encomiums were heaped 
upon him always met them by saying, "George 
was a good boy." 

Colonel Washington's death was reported in 
the Colonies, together with his dying speech, 
which, as Washington wrote to his brother with 
a sort of dry humor that belonged to him, he had 
not yet composed. 

When the troops broke it was Washington 
who succeeded in gathering together the scat- 
tered remnants, and it was he who carried off 
the wounded general in a litter. Braddock died 
on the journey, and was buried in the middle 
of the road to prevent the Indians from dese- 
crating his grave.** The solemn words of the 
burial service of the Church of England were 
read over the grave of his fallen commander 
by young Washington at daybreak, July 14,1755. 

The remains of the unfortunate British gen- 
eral now rest under a handsome monument of 
Vermont granite on a hilltop in Braddock Park, 
a few rods from the spot where he was first 
buried. This monument was erected by the Gen- 
eral Braddock Park Memorial Association and 
to this hilltop the body was removed in 1913, but 
to our minds the lovely glen near by, overshad- 
owed by forest trees, where birds sing in the 

* According to Mr. Lacock, Greneral Braddock died at 
Orchard Camp on the west side of Great Meadows, about a 
quarter of a mile from the place where he was buried. " The 
Braddock Road," by John K. Lacock. 

228 



WASHINGTON AND THE BRADDOCK TRAIL 

branches, is a more fitting spot for a soldier's 
last resting-place than the bare hilltop. 

At the time of the unveiling of the Braddock 
monument, the English Government sent over 
an especial delegation of British soldiers to take 
part in the ceremonies of the occasion, the first 
to come to our shores since the War of 1812. 

On our way to Bedford, we crossed the fine 
three-arched bridge over the Youghiogheny and 
so were near another of the Braddock encamp- 
ments on the east side of the river. 



XI 

FORT BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG AND 

JENNY LIND 

Fort Bedford, on the Raystown branch of 
the Juniata, is one of the early frontier forts of 
western Pennsylvania, holding as it did an im- 
portant strategic position in the French and 
Indian wars. Before the fort was erected, a 
small settlement was made here in 1750 by Rob- 
ert Ray, who established a trading post on the 
north bank of the Juniata and built one or more 
log cabins for the pui'pose of exchanging his 
goods with the Indians for their furs and pelts. 
Very little is known of Ray, except that he was 
of Scotch-Irish descent, but, says the Hon. Wil- 
liam P. Schell, * ' the fact that he first settled at 
Raystown has passed his name down a century 
and a half, and probably it may continue to go 
down through future centuries, well marked by 
four natural monuments — ^Raystown, Raystown 
Branch of the Juniata River, Ray's Hill and 
Ray's Cove, over all of which passed the great 
Indian Trail from Harris ' Ferry, through Rays- 
town to the Ohio River. 

Robert Ray did not live long after estab- 
lishing his trading post and was evidently suc- 
ceeded by Garrett Pendergrass, as ^' Ray's 

230 



FT. BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG, JENNY LIND 

Post" was called ''Pendergrass Place" in 1754. 
An interesting old document in the Court House 
at Bedford is the original treaty between the 
Six Nations and Garrett Pendergrass. 

In 1755 the Governor of the Province agreed 
to open a wagon road from Fort Louden in 
Cumberland County to the forks of the Youghi- 
ogheny River. For this purpose three hundred 
men were sent up, but for some cause or other Ay^^^cn^'^ De^e6 
the project was abandoned for the time. The 
road was completed in 1758, when the allied 
forces of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania 
marched against Fort Duquesne under General 
Forbes. The same year the fort was built at 
Baystown and called Fort Bedford in honor of 
the Duke of Bedford. As early as 1757, Gov- 
ernor Denny ordered Colonel John Armstrong, 
of Carlisle, then in command of a battalion of 
eight companies of Pennsylvania troops doing 
duty on the west side of the Susquehanna River, 
to encamp with a detachment of three hundred 
men near Raystown. '*A well-chosen situa- 
tion, ' ' said the Governor in a letter to the Pro- 
prietaries, * ' on this side of the Allegheny Hills, 
between two Indian roads." 

On the 16th of August, 1758, Major Shippen 
wrote from the camp at Raystown : ** We have a 
good stockade fort here, with several conveni- 
ent and large storehouses. Our camps are all 
secured with good breastworks and a small ditch 

231 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

on the outside, and everything goes on welL Col- 
onel Burd desires his compliments." 

*'0n their way to Fort Duquesne, Colonels 
Bouquet and Washington first marched to Bed- 
ford with the advance and were followed by 
General Forbes, who had been detained by ill- 
ness at Carlisle. The successful troops that put 
to rout the French without striking a blow, 
amounting to seven thousand eight hundred and 
fifty men were reviewed where Bedford 
now stands. ' ' ^ 

According to local tradition, the fort was at 
the comer of Pitt and Juliana Streets, where 
a jewelry shop now stands, the stockades prob- 
ably extending to the banks of the Juniata. It 
seems strange to read of the mustering and 
marching of armies in and through this peaceful 
old town ; but Bedford had a stirring and event- 
ful history in the perilous time of the early 
settlement, in the French and Indian wars and 
in the Revolution. In between these two wars 
the town was laid out by John Lukens, surveyor- 
general, and on an original Penn manor. The 
name was changed from Raystown to Bedford, 
and serving to recall associations with the old 
manor we find the streets still having names of 
several members of the Penn family, as John, 
Richard, Thomas and Juliana, the latter being 
in honor of the Lady Juliana, wife of Thomas 

* " History of the Juniata Valley," by M. J. Jones. 
232 



FT. BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG, JENNY LIND 

Penn, the same whose name was given to the 
library in Lancaster. The main street of the 
town was named Pitt after the great Eng- 
lish statesman. 

The main streets of country towns, with their 
shops, taverns, dust and traffic, all seem very 
much alike ; but in Pitt Street, which is now the 
Lincoln Highway, there are some interesting 
old houses ; among these is a stone house which 
claims the distinction of having entertained 
General Washington in 1794, when he was in 
southern and western Pennsylvania, in conse- 
quence of a very formidable uprising in and 
around Pittsburgh, called the Whiskey Insur- 
rection, which was in reality an organized move- 
ment to overturn the established government. 
The General had been in Harrisburg, Carlisle, 
Chambersburg and other towns ; but only as far 
west as Bedford. At Cumberland he planned 
the western campaign, finding that over five 
thousand troops could be mustered for the ex- 
pedition. This army, which does not seem large 
to us who have heard of troops being counted 
by millions, so overawed the insurgents that 
they were ready to lay down their arms, and 
order was soon established. ''Thus," said 
Chief Justice Marshall, "without shedding a 
drop of blood, did the prudent vigor of the ex- 
ecutive terminate an insurrection which at one 
time threatened to shake the Government of the 
United States to its foundation." 

233 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

General Washington wrote in his diary: 
** Having requested that everything might be 
speedily arranged for a forward movement, and 
a light corps to be organized for the advance 
under the command of Major General Morgan, 
I resolved to proceed to Bedford next morning. ' ' 

The cavalry under Washington's nephew, 
Major George Lewis, escorted him to Bedford, 
where he was entertained at the home of Mr. 
David Espy, Prothonotary of the County of 
Bedford, ''to which house," he said, ''I was 
carried and lodged very comfortably." 

In another house on Pitt Street, owned by 
Mr. Espy, and now the home of his great-grand- 
daughter, Mrs. Hickok, we were shown the table 
on which the General wrote and a handsome old 
chair in which he sat. This fine double house, 
shaded by great maple trees, Mr. Espy built for 
his daughter Mary, who married John Ander- 
son. Here the young couple made their home, 
and in this house Mr. Anderson also conducted 
the affairs of the Bank of Bedford, which ac- 
counts for the two doors opening on the porch ; 
one of these strong doors, with great heavy 
bars, belonged to the bank, and this part of the 
mansion was called the "Bank House." At the 
back of Mrs. Hickok 's home is a beautiful gar- 
den that slopes down to the Juniata, and, 
as we saw it, it was gay and bright with 
summer flowers. 

234 



FT. BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG, JENNY LIND 

Another citizen of Bedford who entertained 
General Washington in 1794 was Mr. Hartley 
at his old homestead near Mt. Dallas. This, 
one of the cherished traditions of the Hartley 
family, is referred to in a letter which Judge 
Jasper Yeates wrote to his wife from Bedford 
several years later. 

My dearest Wife: 

We got here this morning after breakfast but experi- 
enced dreadful Roads. We were much fatigued yesterday, 
but forgot all our cares when we came to Hartleys, 6 miles 
from hence. A tine woman, handsomely but plainly di'essed, 
welcomed us to his house. Good Trout, Asparagus, Olives 
and Apples Garnished our Table, and I had as good a Bed 
as I ever lay in, to console me after my Ride. 

Mr. Washington once told me, on a charge which I 
once made against the President at his own Table, that the 
admiration he warmly expressed for Mrs. Hartley, was a 
Proof of his Omage to the worthy part of the Sex, and 
highly respectful to his Wife. In the same Light I beg 
you will consider my partiality to the elegant accomplish- 
ments of Mrs. Hartley. 

Interesting as is the old town, it is not for its 
charms that so many visitors come to Bedford, 
but for the benefit of the wonderful mineral 
waters that have flowed on here for how many 
thousand years no man can tell. It was long 
years ago, when the Indians still roamed over 
this region, that the curative properties of the 
waters were discovered. With the intuition that 
belongs to those who live in the wilderness and 
in desert places far from the haunts of men, the 
red man noticed that when they bathed their 

235 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

wounds in the waters of the spring they healed 
quickly. Looking upon them naturally as a 
manifestation of the goodness of the Great 
Spirit, in which they were not far wrong, the 
spring became famous among the neighboring 
tribes. Following upon the footsteps of the chil- 
dren of the forest, their white brothers came to 
the springs for the healing of the waters, how 
early the hotel registers do not reveal. 

Although there is now a comfortable hotel. 
Fort Bedford, in the town and conveniently situ- 
ated on the Lincoln Highway, we went directly 
to the Spring House, passing on our way the 
Arandale, a popular hostelry, well situated and 
with a beautiful well-shaded lawn. Very little 
is left of the old house at the springs except the 
central brick building in which many interesting 
and distinguished people have been entertained. 
The hillside cottages have been rebuilt after 
the model of the earlier cottages and with their 
porches and balconies remind one of summer 
hotels in the South. 

In the years before the Civil War, Bedford 
was a favorite resort of politicians, and in the 
registers we find the names of Judge Bumside, 
of Belief onte; Samuel Black, of Pittsburgh; 
James Buchanan, Judge Strong, Jeremiah S. 
Black, the Camerons, father and son, Eeverdy 
Johnson and many others who played an im- 
portant part in the history of the nation. 

236 



iC 




FT. BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG, JENNY LIND 

At that earlier time there was a long, low 
building here, separated from the main house 
and known as Crockford, the bachelors' quar- 
ters, named after the English gambling house. 
If the walls of old Crockford could speak, they 
would have many tales to tell of important 
caucuses held in this building in which the voices 
of benedicts as well as bachelors were heard in 
earnest and excited debate. Wit flashed here, 
talk flowed on freely and perhaps something 
else which flows no more. If the ghosts of the 
former habitues of the Springs could return to 
this old haunt, they would feel themselves in a 
strange place; old Crockford has disappeared, 
the ramshackle bath houses with their tin tubs 
no longer disfigure the lawn, and in their places 
are well-equipped bathrooms and a fine large 
swimming pool. 

What has not changed, however, is the beau- 
tiful mountain up whose steep sides the devoted 
disciples of Esculapius climb after the morning 
draft of water, some of the faithful making the 
ascent again at noon. 

The earliest hotel register dates back only to 
1823, but guests had been coming to what was 
then often called Anderson's Spring long be- 
fore that date. This property belonged for 
many years to the well-known Anderson family, 
some members of which are still living in Bed- 
ford, and tickets for the use of the water were 

237 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

evidently issued, at one time, as we find such 
entries in the register as, ^'Dan'l J. Warfield, 
life ticket; John Purviance and family of 5, 
Bait., life ticket"; other tickets were only for 
weeks or months; but tickets of some sort 
seemed to be required. 

Many of the guests came in their own coaches 
from Maryland, Virginia and even farther 
south, often bringing one or two servants with 
them, as' *S. Clay King, daughter and 2 servants, 
and J. H. Tucker, Maryland, 2 servants and 3 
horses." This was in 1856, and the Ridgelys, 
from Hampton, near Baltimore, were here that 
year; Colonel Samuel Black, from Pittsburgh, 
and the Honorable James Buchanan, from Lan- 
caster, soon to be elected President of the 
United States. Some interesting entries are to 
be found in 1824, as Mr. and Mrs. Lear, Wash- 
ington, D. C; probably Tobias Lear, who was 
General Washington's secretary in the later 
years of his life, and his wife, who was Mrs. 
Washington's niece, and here we find **Mrs. 
Adams, Washington," evidently Mrs. John 
Quincy Adams, and with her, **J. Adams and 
Miss Hellen, ' ' her son and his fiancee. 

Something of the leisurely old-time life of 
the South seemed to have belonged to Bedford 
in those days. The same people met here year 
after year; they drove together, they walked and 
they talked endlessly, especially if they came 

238 



FT. BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG, JENNY LIND 

from the other side of Mason and Dixon's Line. 
The more sedate playing cards in the evening, 
while the young and gay danced to the music 
of the fiddle played by negroes, who beat time 
with their feet as well as the dancers. The 
dances were held in the large dining-room, where 
two hundred guests assembled by day, and this 
custom of pushing back the tables for the eve- 
ning festivity, as Mr. Prolix has described it, 
has continued almost up to the present time. 

Sarah Bruce, who has joined me here, says 
that life at the Springs was still much as Mr. 
Prolix wrote of it, when she came here with 
her grandmother more than twenty years ago. 
Everything was very primitive then, no elec- 
tric lights and no automobiles tooting all 
through the beautiful grounds. There was much 
sociability among the guests at that time and 
not a little gayety, as there were a number of 
young people in the house. Morning germans 
were quite the order of the day, and very charm- 
ing the girls looked dancing in their fresh mus- 
lins and organdies. Senator Don Cameron was 
here then and his sister, Mrs. Richard J. Halde- 
man, and Miss Haldeman and a delightful Mr. 
George Plummer Smith, from Philadelphia, 
who was a walking encyclopedia of old Penn- 
sylvania lore. There were also many charming 
people from Pittsburgh and Washington, as 
there are now, and McKims, Ridgelys, CarroUs 

16 239 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

and Carters from Maryland and Virginia. In 
deed, Bedford has always been a favorite resort 
of southern people. Sarah, who knows more 
about the South than I do, says that Bedford, 
the town as well as the Springs, reminds her* 
constantly of the South. 

For some years the Springs suffered an 
eclipse, in consequence of the popularity of the 
foreign Spa among well-to-do Americans, with 
the accompanying delights of a sojourn in Lon- 
don or Paris. Since the upheaval of the 
European world three years ago, our country- 
men have begun to realize what they have of 
value within their own borders, and Bedford 
has come into its own, and is once more a popu- 
lar and fashionable resort. 

Sarah and I stay on day after day, enjoying 
the waters and mineral baths and held fast by 
the charm of the old place. We drive in the 
afternoons, sometimes stopping at the Aramdale 
to call on friends and after a spin on the Lincoln 
Highway or on one of the other beautiful drives, 
lingering in the town to shop, often walking 
back through Eichard or Juliana Street. On 
the former there is an interesting old house, 
just opposite the new inn, built by a Major Talia- 
ferro from Virginia, an elegant gentleman of 
the old school, who lived here for many years. 
On Juliana Street is the home of the Misses 
Barclay, with its beautiful garden on one side. 

240 



FT. BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG, JENNY LIND 

Old residents of Bedford are the Barclays, as 
are the Russells, whose house is near by. An- 
other interesting house on this street is the 
Lyon Mansion, a handsome house with huge 
boxwood bushes at the sides, a vine-covered 
iron fence in front and a fine garden in the rear. 
This house attracted us by the beauty of its 
architecture and the cheerful well-to-do look 
that fresh paint and varnish always give 
to a habitation. 

** Ancient but not mouldy and moth-eaten!" 
exclaimed Sarah as we passed by and turned 
into the Lincoln Highway, on which the pretty 
little Episcopal Church is situated ; the handsome 
Betz House, and many other attractive resi- 
dences, with lovely gardens. In the distance we 
could see the Grove, an old Anderson property, 
as much of the land in and around Bedford as 
well as the Springs, belonged to this family and 
was later the home of Mr. Edward Tosswill Har- 
rison, whose mother was an Anderson. 

Before leaving Bedford we accepted an in- 
vitation to stop over and lunch with some 
friends in Hollidaysburg, thus gaining several 
hours there. On the train we were fortunate in 
meeting a friend and former official of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad, Mr. D. H. Lovell, who ex- 
plained to us what had always been most 
mysterious to me, the practical working of the 
old Portage Railroad. He told us that trans- 

241 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

portation was by the Juniata Canal to Holli- 
daysburg, when the boats were here placed on 
trucks and thus conveyed over a series of in- 
clined planes across the Alleghenies. An engine 
at the top of each incline pulled up the truck. 
Some of the old trucks still to be seen were 
pointed out to us. The descent from the moun- 
tain heights was like that to Avemus, swift and 
reasonably sure. At the foot of the mountains 
the boats were again placed on a canal which 
carried them to Pittsburgh. Mr. Lovell's ex- 
planation was very clear, and we afterwards 
saw a picture of this primitive method of trans- 
portation in the home of Mr. J. King McLana- 
han, the ' ' grand old man of Hollidaysburg, ' ' as 
he is called by everybody in the beautiful old 
town, which served to illustrate what had been 
told us of the portage system, which Prolix, 
in his diary considered a ''miracle of art." 
Our kind hosts, knowing our interest in 
historic events, had invited some clever anti- 
quarians to meet us, and sitting on a shaded 
porch, which overlooks one of the principal 
streets, now the William Penn Highway, we 
were regaled with tales of old Hollidaysburg, 
from the time of the Penn'grant to the Holliday 
brothers, who settled the town, to a much later 
time, when in 1852 it was the host of the Hun- 
garian patriot. General Kossuth. Of this stay in 
Hollidaysburg of several days Mr. Plymouth 

242 



FT. BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG, JENNY LIND 

Snyder told us an amusing little story. Kossuth 
was warmly welcomed to the town and enter- 
tained by Judge McFarland, the Blairs and 
other leading citizens. While staying in the 
house of one or the other of these Hollidaysburg 
families, Kossuth Avrote to his friends of the 
comfort in which his hosts lived, belonging, as 
he expressed it, ' ' to the upper class of peasant. ' ' 
Kossuth, himself of noble birth, seemed to know 
of no social gradations between noble and peas- 
ant; and his remark is the more amusing in 
view of the social position, education and refine- 
ment of the Blairs and other old families in this 
aristocratic town. When a new county was 
organized, it was named Blair in recognition of 
the services to the country of the Hon. John 
Blair, and again the first canal boat that came to 
Hollidaysburg was named the John Blair. Mr. 
Blair was apublic-spirited citizen and an earnest 
advocate of internal improvements, for which, 
says his great-granddaughter, "he received a 
good share of denunciation from those who were 
opposed to spending public money for such 
things as roads and canals." A member of the 
Blair family, as a girl of fourteen, long re- 
membered the great excitement caused by the 
arrival of the John Blair, the crowds of people 
on the deck of the boat and on the banks of 
the canal. 

Colonel McClure, in his "Recollections," 

243 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

tells of meeting Kossuth at Independence Hall 
and again in his tour of the Juniata Valley in a 
village where the passengers of the few through 
trains of the Pennsylvania were dined. Colonel 
McClure does not mention the name of this vil- 
lage ; it was evidently some town near Hollidays- 
burg. He says, learning that Kossuth was 
coming, **I arranged with the proprietor of the 
hotel to have Kossuth and his wife so disposed 
at the end of the table that the seat reserved 
for me would bring me next to them. Railroad 
dinners were always very hurried occasions, and 
when Kossuth rushed in to the table he and his 
wife thought much more of trying to get a satis- 
factory meal out of American cooking, to which 
they were strangers, than of discussing the 
cause of Hungary. Mrs. Kossuth was of medium 
size, with a strong, handsome face, equally dark 
in complexion with her husband, and she man- 
aged the dinner. As some of the dishes were 
entirely unknown to her, she always first in- 
vestigated them by taking the dish and holding it 
under her nose to judge how palatable it might 
be by its fragrance and, if acceptable, it was 
handed to her husband. I could not miss the 
opportunity to have another brief conversation 
with the man who was then my great idol in hero- 
worship, and when I reminded him of our meet- 
ing in Independence Hall, where he could not 
remember one in five thousand of those who 

244. 



FT. BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG, JENNY LIND 

greeted him, I had opened the door for the ex- 
pression of his heart-felt enthusiasm for the 
American people and their Government and for 
the bleeding friends he had left behind him. He 
warmed up at once, and my recollection of the 
event is that I never before heard such fervent 
eloquence. I was sorry, indeed, when the hoarse 
scream of the iron horse called him away, and 
I parted from him for the last time with bound- 
less pride, because I had twice met the greatest 
living apostle of human liberty. ' ' 

Our friends told us of other and more ro- 
mantic associations, still recalled by old inhabi- 
tants, who remembered Jenny Lind's visit to 
Blair County in 1851. Mr. Snyder related an 
incident connected with the Swedish singer's 
stay at the Mountain House, which was situated 
at a railroad junction near Hollidaysburg. 
While at this hotel she engaged a carriage to 
take her up the mountain side, and upon reach- 
ing a place from which there was an extended 
view of the distant mountains, the valley and 
the Juniata flowing through it, she was so im- 
pressed by the beauty of the scene that she 
greeted it with an outburst of song, so exquisite, 
said the narrator, that the birds, her only 
hearers except the coachman, must have felt that 
a rival of their own kind had joined them. The 
view of hill and valley may have reminded the 
Swedish nightingale of some scene in her own 

245 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

land, as the song with which she broke in upon 
the stilhiess of the mountain side was ''Home, 
Sweet Home," which, it is said, she sang with 
so much feeling that it never failed to bring 
tears to many eyes in the audience. 

Although he was bom in Bedford County, 
Mr. J. King McLanahan has lived in HoUidays- 
burg the greater part of his long life and is 
always claimed by this town as her leading citi- 
zen, having taken an active part in the indus- 
trial, educational and social life of the borough. 
Mr. McLanahan 's especial interest in later years 
has been Holliday House, in whose beautiful 
building an excellent private school is held dur- 
ing the scholastic term, and in the summer sea- 
son is opened for guests. ^ 

Before we left Hollidaysburg we were mo- 
tored through the town, past Holliday House, 
by the handsome building of the Y. M. C. A. 
and the athletic field of eight acres, both the 
gifts of Mr. James C. Dysart, a generous and 
public-spirited citizen, who feels, as thoughtful 
persons are coming to realize more and more 
each year, that parks for exercise, music and 
other recreations are quite as much needed in 
our country towns as in our great cities. They 
build higher than they know who thus add op- 

^ Since writing the above, Hollidaysburg has been called 
upon to mourn tlie loss of Mr. McLanahan, a citizen greatly 
beloved and respected. 

246 



FT. BEDFORD, HOLLIDAYSBURG, JENNY LIND 

portunities for healthful recreation and inno- 
cent enjoyment to their fellow-townsmen! 

Instead of leaving this interesting town by 
train as we had expected, our friends motored 
us to Altoona, where we took the trolley to 
Tyrone, and from there a train brought us to 
Bellefonte, making a varied trip which is more 
attractive and far less tiresome than a continu- 
ous railroad journey. It was late when we 
reached Bellefonte; but our rooms were await- 
ing us at the Bush House, and tired as we were 
we vowed that nothing would have made us will- 
ing to forego the delightful day. 



XII 
THE CITY OF THE BEAUTIFUL SPRING 



We came into Belief onte so late last night 
that we failed to appreciate the beauty of the 
approach to the town by a road cut through the 
hills. It may be said of this place, as of Mt, 
Zion, "beautiful for situation on the sides of 
the north," and of the south as well for, like 
Jerusalem, Bellefonte is girt about by hills, 
and is itself a hill town. This fact we realized 
after a morning spent in climbing over ascents 
to see old and interesting houses. We were for- 
tunate in spending our first day here with an 
old inhabitant, always the most delightful 
guide, for with such a cicerone one gets some- 
thing more than dry facts, and if some fiction 
in the way of tradition is thrown in, it serves 
to light up the story, and after all there is a 
foundation of fact in most local tales. We saw 
the oldest house in the town and the newest, 
which is much less attractive, and the lovely 
old Friends' Meeting, built by a Valentine; 
indeed, most of the old houses were built by 
one of the Valentine brothers. This Friend Val- 
entine, finding no meeting-house in the town 
when he came to Bellefonte, held meetings on 
the hillside, until a suitable building could be 

248 



THE CITY OF THE BEAUTIFUL SPRING 

erected. This most picturesque meeting-house 
is at the top of a steep liill and mth its moss- 
grown roof and overhanging eaves is a bit of 
old-world beauty and quaintness, in strong con- 
trast with the handsome but quite modem and 
unpicturesque Academy buildings near by. 

A stone house at the comer of High and 
Spring Streets was pointed out to us as the 
oldest residence in the town, built by Colonel 
James Dunlop. After serving in Canada under 
Colonel William Irvine and holding a commis- 
sion in the Pennsylvania Line, Colonel Dunlop 
came to Bald Eagle township in 1796 and bought 
a part of the extensive Griffith Gibson tract upon 
which Bellefonte is situated. He is said to 
have been the first resident of the town, which 
he and his son-in-law, James Harris, laid out, 
the site being chosen on account of the beautiful 
spring of pure water which they found here. 
James Harris, a public-spirited citizen, bought 
the property on which the spring is situated and 
by deed secured its use to the town for all time. 
He and his father-in-law. Colonel Dunlop, were 
prime movers in establishing a public school 
or academy soon after the town was laid out, 
of which the big building on the hill by the 
Friends' Meeting is the outcome. In this good 
work many citizens of Centre County took an 
active part. The first meeting was held in the 
house of Benjamin Patton, and among the 

249 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

trustees were James Dunlop, Roland Curtin, 
James Potter, Andrew Gregg and John HaU. 
The Reverend Henry R. Wilson was the first 
principal of the academy and when he removed 
to Carlisle he was succeeded by the Reverend 
James Linn. 

On High Street, once the fashionable quar- 
ter of the town, is the former home of Grovernor 
Curtin, and this street led us to the Court House, 
where there is a fine full-length statue of the 
great war Governor, whom his native town de- 
lights to honor. Flanking this very handsome 
statue are bronze tablets representing in low 
relief important events in the Governor's life 
and in that of the Nation which he served 
so ably. 

Bellefonte may well be spoken of as the 
mother of governors, as from it have come two 
other governors of Pennsylvania, James A. 
Beaver and Daniel H. Hastings, both of whom 
had an honorable war record prior to their 
election to civic administration. The Hastings 
and Beaver residences are on the heights over- 
looking the old town, and here are many hand- 
some houses with terraced gardens and sev- 
eral beautiful churches, this being now the court 
end of the town and yet lacking to us the interest 
to be found in the older buildings, A number 
of the houses are on Allegheny Street, among 
these the Linn House, which celebrated its cen- 
tenary several years since. Mr. Henry Sage 

250 







BuRNHAM, Built in i8ii, Enlaroed by Reuben Bond Valentine in 1857 




The Linn House, Built in iSio, Still Residence of 
Linn Family 



THE CITY OF THE BEAUTIFUL SPRING 

Linn and his sister, who live in this house, are 
the children of Mr. John Blair Linn, the his- 
torian of the Buffalo valley and of many other 
sections of Pennsylvania. 

The pride and wonder of Belief onte and what 
makes it quite different from other towns is its 
beautiful spring, which has its rise in some 
distant source. Here at the rate of fourteen 
thousand gallons per minute this water bubbles 
up, supplying the town with pure water, the 
surplus rushing through it like a river and by 
the Bush House, where we were lulled to sleep 
at night by the delightful sound of a rush- 
ing stream. 

It goes without saying that the town owes 
its name to its beautiful spring and in an old 
house still standing on the turnpike it was 
christened. One story is that Mrs. James 
Harris, who lived in this house, an odd-looking 
structure with three porches or balconies, gave 
the name to the town ; but a much more probable 
story is that Talleyrand, who visited the Dun- 
lops or Harrises, bestowed upon it its French 
name. Belief onte, beautiful spring. 

Other interesting houses are the Benner 
house and several Curtin houses, as two 
brothers. Dr. Constanz Curtin and Roland Cur- 
tin, were early settlers here. The Curtin 
brothers came from County Clare, Ireland ; the 
former, a surgeon in the Royal Navy, practiced 
his profession in Belief onte; the latter, Roland 

251 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Curtin, was in the iron business, and in connec- 
tion with Moses Boggs built Eagle Forge, on 
Bald Eagle Creek, about five miles from Belle- 
f onte. Roland Curtin, the iron master, was the 
father of Governor Andrew G. Curtin, and Dr. 
Constanz Curtin was the father of Dr. Roland 
G. Curtin, of Philadelphia. 

It seems as if no town of distinction was 
quite complete in early times without its neigh- 
boring band of highway robbers. Doylestown, 
in Bucks County, had its Doane brothers, the 
ruins of whose stronghold are still pointed out 
to credulous tourists, and Bedford had its cele- 
brated Davy Lewis, whose stronghold was on 
Lookout Mountain, in one of the ranges near 
Bedford, to which he is said to have given the 
name, as he had a desirable point of observation 
from which he could view the highway up and 
down for some distance. This bandit and his 
associates seem to have divided their attentions 
between the Juniata and the Bald Eagle valleys. 

As we w^ere passing by an old house on Alle- 
gheny Street, Mrs. N told us that the Lewis 

robbers roamed through this region even as late 
as her mother's time and that one of them en- 
tered this house in broad daylight. Her mother, 
then a young girl, saw a powerful-looking man 
passing through the hall. She was too badly 
frightened to give the alarm at once and the 
intruder, being an expeditious gentleman and an 
adept in his profession, helped himself and 

252 



THE CITY OF THE BEAUTIFUL SPRING 

escaped with his loot before Miss Morris had 
recovered from her fright sufficiently to sum- 
mon aid. This, Mrs. N says, is a true tale 

as it was told her by her mother. 

While I further explored the old part of the 
town with Mrs. N , Sarah devoted her morn- 
ing to looking over ancient records in the Court 
House. She came in to luncheon looking so 
happy over her discoveries that I asked her if 
she had found any gold nuggets among 
the records. 

*'No, only nuggets of information; the old 
wills are most interesting. People left cows and 
calves and colts and even feather beds to their 
children and grandchildren, just as they did in 
Shakespeare's time. An Ellen Graham be- 
queathed to her granddaughter Ellen a bay 
mare and a feather bed ; but besides these amus- 
ing items I found a number of things that I 
really need." 

These genealogists are queer folk ; they seem 
just as much pleased when they find a missing 
link or trace out a line as if they had found the 
pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 

**I find," continued Sarah, ''that Kathleen 
is directly descended from Colonel Dunlop, who 
owned the tract on which Belief onte is situated. 
And here again I find a link with old Donegal, 
as Colonel Dunlop married Jane Boggs, whose 
father was Captain Andrew Boggs, one of the 
founders there, and all the Harrises, Blanch- 

263 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

ards and a lot of other important people here 
belong* to that line; it all works out like a 
problem in mathematics. 

''Kathleen had better come here and pay 
some attention to her ancestors ; they are quite 
worth while. What is she doing in Wash- 
ington anyway?" 

''I think Kathleen is more interested in 
futures than in ancestors," I said, laughing over 
Sarah's enthusiasm. 

''Is that really so?" 

Sarah and I have been so much together that 
we have formed a sort of habit of talking to 
each other in shorthand, and when I added, 
"What else can you expect when you present 
an altogether delightful man to a charming 
young woman ? ' ' she said : 

' ' Oh ! of course, I expected Mr. Henderson to 
be bowled over; but I never thought of Kath- 
leen caring for anyone else; the romance of her 
life seemed to end with Howard's death." 

"Love, like hope, springs eternal in the 
human breast," with Avhich trite remark we 
separated to dress for an afternoon and evening 
at one of the old Valentine houses ; this one a 
little way out of town on the turnpike, which was 
built by Eeuben Bond Valentine near the stream 
called "Logan's Branch." 

There are a number of interesting houses 
near Belief onte; Willow Bank, which belonged 

354 



THE CITY OF THE BEAUTIFUL SPRING 

to the Valentines, a hospitable home remem- 
bered as the scene of many pleasures in the past ; 
but now, down in the world, it has come to be the 
county almshouse. Another house some miles 
out of town on the Lewistown Pike was the home 
of Mrs. Jane Mann, the railroad station there 
being named "Axemann." Mrs. Mann, who 
was a daughter of Judge Bumside, lived alone 
after her husband 's death and carried on an axe 
factory established by him, in which a number 
of men were employed, many foreigners and 
some rather rough specimens of humanity. 
People wondered how Mrs. Mann was content to 
live alone with so many rough men around her. 
She was evidently a woman of strong character 
and one who had boundless faith in human na- 
ture and knew how to appeal to its best side. 
She was wont to say that she protected herself 
by never locking a door in her home, or in her 
springhouse. When the milk was brought in 
from her farm, Mrs. Mann regularly filled three 
cans or crocks and left them in the springhouse, 
where the fresh cool water bubbled up continu- 
ally; one can was marked "For the wayfarer," 
a second * * For the widow and orphan, each take 
one quart, ' ' and a third ' * For personal use, do 
not touch. " It is needless to say that this gen- 
erous woman's own can of milk was never 
tampered with. 

In Mrs. Mann's last illness she had the care 

17 255 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

and companionship of a relative from Philadel- 
phia, a lovely lady who described the strange 
scene in this lonely roadside house, where her 
own vigils were shared by workmen from the 
factory, who took turns in spending the long 
hours of the night by Mrs. Mann's fireside in 
order to be at hand in case the mistress, whom 
they loved and honored, should need their help. 

One afternoon we spent at Rockview, about 
five miles south of Bellefonte, where a very in- 
teresting experiment in penal reform is being 
carried on. I was delighted when an invitation 
from the warden came, and with it a motor to 
take us there, as I had heard so much of this 
prison farm in Centre County and of how it 
was established. 

For many years the late Mr. Francis J. Tor- 
rance and the State Board of Charities, of which 
he was then president, had a plan for the estab- 
lishing of a prison farm, in which Mr. John 
Francies, who for some years has been warden 
of the Western Penitentiary, in Pittsburgh, was 
heartily in favor. Indeed, he was so obsessed 
by a vision of his prisoners of various classes 
working in the open, breathing fresh air, feel- 
ing the sun of heaven and the rain, too, for the 
matter of that, and on the whole spending their 
days like human beings, that he was moved to 
speak of it before the Legislature at Harrisburg 
in 1911. This speech was listened to atten- 

256 



THE CITY OF THE BEAUTIFUL SPRING 

tively and the result was a bill passed by the 
Legislature, March 30, 1911. This bill, signed 
by Governor John Tener, who was heart and 
soul in favor of the undertaking, provided for 
the purchase by the State of Pennsylvania of 
land for the purpose set forth by Mr. Francies. 
After inspecting other locations, this most 
desirable property of over five thousand acres 
was decided upon. Of this tract nearly one 
thousand acres already belonged to the State 
Forest Eeservation, and the additional four 
thousand three hundred and eighteen acres were 
bought by the state. Old farms and orchards 
are included in this tract, forests and mountain 
sides, a varied and beautiful panorama, as we 
viewed the landscape from the prison buildings, 
which are on so great a height that the prison- 
ers cannot see the walls of their enclosure from 
the prison. So here in Pennsylvania is being 
proved what the young English poet, Lovelace, 
wrote from his little prison in Cambridge so 
many years ago ; 

Stone walls do not a prison make 
Or iron bars a cage. 

' ' These prisoners working in the open must 
sometimes forget that they are prisoners, ' ' said 
Sarah, as we passed by some of them at work 
on the unfinished buildings, hauling stone and 
breaking it up to make concrete for the walls. 
Others were bringing in great baskets of vege- 

257 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

tables from the truck patch of ninety-seven, acres. 

"They don't look like prisoners, Mr. Fran- 
cies, they look like American citizens." 

' '■ That is what we are trying to make them, ' ' 
was the reply. 

We were motored all over the grounds, 
through the woods and by the mountain stream 
that runs through them. We saw the cows, pigs 
and chickens ; but what interested us most was 
the part of the farm where the colts were 
raised. We thought of the interest the pris- 
oners naturally would take in these beautiful 
creatures, and what a valuable asset were these 
fifteen fine-blooded colts ! 

We had supper with the warden and his fam- 
ily and while sitting on the porch in the twilight, 
by dint of asking a number of questions, we drew 
from Mr. Francies some details of the beginning 
of the work at Kockview. He told us that he 
came here with one prisoner, and that at a way 
station where they were waiting for a train he 
was interested in talking to some one, when his 
prisoner came up to him and warned him that 
he would miss the train if he was not careful, — 
the train that was to take him to prison ! 

"I don't wonder that the prisoners want 
to come here," said Sarah. "I should think 
that all your rooms would be engaged for 
next summer. ' ' 

**Now, it^s not as bad as that, Miss Bruce, 

258 



THE CITY OF THE BEAUTIFUL SPRING 

and I want you to understand that we are not 
too soft with our prisoners ; we have strict regu- 
lations here, and they have to be kept. What we 
try to do is to establish relations with our pris- 
oners and so make them understand that we are 
not working against them. After I brought the 
first man here and worked with him alone for 
some days, I had another prisoner brought here, 
and when I overheard my first man say to the 
new arrival, ' The old man 's all right, you treat 
him white, ^ I felt that I had won the day. ' ' 

^^That was certainly worth while," and as 
we took our leave, I said: ''You have given us 
much to think about, Mr. Francies, and one more 
reason for being proud of our own state. I 
fancy that many good people in Pennsylvania 
who know of prison reforms in New York, Mas- 
sachusetts and even in California, know nothing 
of this important work in their own state. ' ' 

"Very likely, but that does not keep the 
work from going on. ' ' 

' ' No, that is the right way to look at it ; but 
I always like to see credit given where credit 
is due." 

As we drove away, Sarah turned back and 
said: ''If I ever write a book it shall be called 
'How To Be Happy Though in Prison.' " 

"A companion to 'How To Be Happy 
Though Married.' " Mr. Francies called after 
us, laughing heartily, "I have known both." 



XIII 
SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 

Picturesque as the Susquehanna is in many 
places, it seems more beautiful than ever at Sun- 
bury and Northumberland, for here the two 
tributaries of the great river meet. The West 
Branch has its rise near the head of the Alle- 
gheny River and flows by Lock Haven, Williams- 
port, Lewistown and many another town to 
Northumberland, where it throws itself into the 
arms of the North Branch, which has come a 
long and winding way from Otsego Lake in New 
York, by Binghamton, Towanda, Asylum, Pitts- 
ton and Wilkes-Barre to this trysting place. 
Sunbury was built upon the site of an Indian vil- 
lage, and a very important one, as Shamokin 
was the headquarters of the chiefs of the Six 
Nations, among them Shikellamy, the best of 
them all, in whose honor a boulder is marked 
with a tablet, which has the following inscrip- 
tion: "Erected as a memorial to — Shikellamy, 
also Swatane, 'Our Enlightener, ' the represen- 
tative of the Six Nations in this Province. First 
sent to Shamokin [Sunbury] in 1728. Appointed 
vice-regent in 1745, died December 6, 1748. He 
was buried near this spot. This diplomat and 
statesman was a firm friend of the Province of 

260 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 



Pennsylvania. Erected by the Fort Augusta 
Chapter, J). A. R., in cooperation with the Penn- 
sylvania Historical Conunission. June, 1915." 

Sunbury was very much exposed to In- 
dian forays and sadly in need of defenses ; but 
it was not until after the frightful massacre on 
the banks of Penn's Creek, where Selinsgrove 
now stands, that Fort Augusta was built, just 
below the confluence of the two branches of the 
river, where it commanded the approach to the 
valley. Nothing is now left of this once im- 
portant outpost except the powder magazine, 
which is still in good condition. The stockades 
reached as far as the old home of Judge Don- 
nel, on Market Square, which is now in the center 
of the town. 

We were fortunate in having come to Sun- 
bury some years since, before it had been drawn 
into the turmoil of business activities, and still 
retained much of its village charm. In those 
days we had the pleasure of hearing the recol- 
lections of a delightful woman who had lived 
in Sunbury in her girlhood, before the several 
railroads that meet here and the great silk 
mills had transformed the place. And to make a 
link between her own time and a still more re- 
mote past, our charming raconteiise had talked 
to former residents, among whom were several 
who had lived through those days of danger 
and distress when the beautiful valley of the 

261 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Wyoming on the north had been laid waste. She 
had also known some of those who were able to 
make their escape from the massacre and came 
down the river in boats to find a place of refuge 
at Fort Augusta. 

Other and gayer scenes of her girlhood this 
lady described, among them the advent of Mr. 
John Mason, son of Thomas Mason, an English- 
man, who came to Philadelphia where he en- 
gaged in comanerce and owned many vessels. 
John Mason came to Sunbury in his old age, 
built a spacious mansion, with a great hall 
on top of the house for dancing, and 
here beautiful parties were given which were 
the delight of the young people. Near Mr. 
Mason's house, which was on top of Blue 
Hill, opposite Northumberland, he erected 
an observatory, which was the wonder of the 
whole countryside. This observatory, or lean- 
ing tower, as it was called, for it literally 
hung over a sheer precipice of about four hun- 
dred feet, was built upon four logs and had 
three stories and a balcony. Mr. Mason was 
in the habit of riding about the country on his 
gray pony and, meeting him on the road, as she 
often did, walking and leading his pony by the 
bridle, our narrator said that he was the living 
image of the statue of Old Mortality which stands 
by one of the entrances to Laurel Hill Cemetery 
in Philadelphia. Mr. Mason and his house and 
his collection of books have long since disap- 

262 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 

peared, some of the latter having been sold by 
the peck at a public sale. Some intelligent 
neighbors of Mr. Mason were so fortunate as to 
secure several pecks of books from the once- 
treasured library. 

My old friend, who was thewidowof one of the 
leading lawyers of Sunbury, Judge C. B. Don- 
nel, spoke of the great interest and excite- 
ment of summer, marking the convening of the 
Supreme Court, which met for some years in 
this town and brought to its sessions great 
lawyers from all over the state. From Phila- 
delphia came Judge Cadwalader, Chief Justice 
Tilghman, Horace Binney, William Rawle, 
Philip Nicklin, Thomas I. Wharton and many 
other clever jurists. These lawyers came in 
their coaches in early days and later by the 
canal. Judge Bumside came across country 
from his home in Bellefonte, or down the river 
from Wilkes-Barre, where he lived for some 
time, and from the same place came his brother- 
in-law. Judge Huston, Judge Henry M. Fuller 
and Judge Conyngham. There was always a 
notable representation of the legal fraternity 
from Wilkes-Barre, which has been distin- 
guished early and late for its able jurists. Mrs. 
Donnel said that the judges generally arrived 
the first Sunday in August and before church 
time in the morning. Judge Cadwalader drove 
all the way from Philadelphia in his coach; 

263 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

those traveling from a greater distance, as 
Judge Brackenridge and Judge Wilkins, from 
Pittsburgh, came part of the way by canal to 
Northumberland and took the stage-coach there 
for Sunbury. Judge Yeates came from Lan- 
caster and Judges Henderson and Gibson 
from Carlisle ; the latter, Mrs. Donnel said, was 
a great favorite with the Sunbury children, hav- 
ing won his way to their affections by his clever 
pencil sketches. While the long speeches were 
being made in Court, Judge Gibson was wont 
to amuse himself by drawing caricatures of his 
associated, which he often threw out of the win- 
dow to the children passing by in the street. 

One morning we crossed the river to North- 
umberland and made our way to the home of 
Dr. Joseph Priestly, which is surrounded by a 
fine lawn, which slopes down to the river. Stand- 
ing on the railroad bank, we had a good view 
of the house, of which Sarah took a photograph. 
The window on the right side of the front door 
has a crescent-shaped opening, through which 
Priestly is said to have made his experiments 
with the prismatic rays. 

The story of the emigration from his home 
in Yorkshire, England, of this *' chemist and 
non-conformist minister" is interesting. It ap- 
pears that Priestly 's two sons and his friend. 
Dr. Thomas Cooper, came to Northumberland 
first, became so much interested in a settlement 

264 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BAERE 

on the Susquehanna and wrote home so enthusi- 
astically of its advantages that Dr. and Mrs. 
Priestly joined them in July, 1794, and liked 
the place so well that they concluded to remain 
in Northumberland. Here Priestly preached 
and worked upon his scientific experiments, the 
discovery of oxygen being his most valuable 
contribution to science. Some of Doctor 
Priestly 's descendants are still living in 
Northumberland. 

Another morning we went by trolley to Sel- 
insgrove, on the northern bank of the Susque- 
hanna. Through the town runs Penn's Creek, 
which has its source in Centre County. This 
stream divides the town into two parts, the sec- 
tion between the river and the creek being on 
the Isle of Que, a name that has always fascin- 
ated me. The island is supposed to have been 
so named by some French settler on account of 
its shape being like that of the queues which were 
so fashionable in early times. Selinsgrove is an 
old town, the first settlement by George Gabriel, 
a trader, dating back to 1745, but within a few 
years it has been growing in size and importance 
by leaps and bounds, and now contains many 
handsome residences and fine public buildings. 
Among the older houses we were shown the for- 
mer residence of Governor Simon Snyder, who, 
although bom in Lancaster, lived in Selinsgrove 
for many years. As War Governor in 1812, 

265 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Simon Snyder served Ms State with so much 
ability that he was reelected twice and so had 
three successive terms as Chief Executive of 
the Commonwealth. 

This evening I had a letter from Kathleen, 
who purposes to meet us in Scranton the latter 
part of this week. 

' ' Why Scranton ? ' ' Sarah asked. 

'* Because Scranton is nearer New York 
than Sunbury." 

* ' So Kathleen is in New York? ' ' 

"Yes, doubtless seeing Mr. Henderson off." 

*'Is it as bad as that?" 

"Yes, quite as bad," I said laughing. 

"You see I thought we should have Kath- 
leen all to ourselves, and now we shall have to 
share her with someone else, which is discon- 
certing, to say the least. ' ' 

"I understand, and in a way I share your 
regret; but let us enjoy for the present what 
the gods send us. Kathleen writes that her car 
will be at our disposal, and that she is ready to 
go with us anywhere that we wish. Her new 
chauffeur is fairly good and quite intelligent 
about finding his way on strange roads. ' ' 

"That sounds encouraging and now, by all 
means, let us go to Bradford County; it ^dll be 
in line with what we see here and around Wilkes- 
Barre. I have read somewhere that the British 
and Indians assembled at Tioga Point in 1778 

266 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 

before going down the river to attack the Ply- 
mouth settlement. Bradford County was then 
a part of Luzerne County and near Tioga Point, 
which is now Athens, the famous Queen Esther 
had her headquarters for a while, and from this 
place was able to join the forces that set forth 
against Plymouth. You see how Tioga Point, 
or Diahoga, as the Indians called it, fits into the 
story of Wyoming. Then Asylum, the old 
French settlement, that I am anxious to see, is 
only a few miles north of Athens. I was cheated 
out of my trip there in June, as you know. " 

''You shall not be cheated out of it now, 
dear; Kathleen will be so inspired by your 
eloquence that she will be ready to set forth at 
once for Bradford County. You know so much 
that is interesting about these old Pennsylvania 
settlements that a car should always be waiting 
to take you wherever you wish to go. ' ' 

"Why not go to Wilkes-Barre this after- 
noon and have a few hours in the Wyoming His- 
torical Society instead of waiting until tomor- 
row morning?" I asked. "They have so many 
valuable and interesting papers and collections 
there, and that will give us two full days 
in Wilkes-Barre before we meet Kathleen 
in Scranton." 

It is needless to say that my suggestioni was 
accepted with alacrity by my companion, who 
was evidently keen for further research. 

267 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

We had often made the journey from Phila- 
delphia to Wilkes-Barre by Bethlehem and the 
Water G-ap and by Pottsville; but this after- 
noon's trip from Sunbury, all the way by the 
side of the North Branch of the Susquehanna, 
seemed to us the most beautiful of all the routes. 
The river is so broad in some places that it 
seems like a lake dotted over with pretty, well- 
wooded islands, once the favorite fishing and 
hunting grounds of the Indians, of whom we 
were reminded by the names of many of the 
towns that we passed through, as Catawissa, 
Shickshinny, Mocanaqua and Nanticoke, the 
latter quite near Plymouth. WiUces-Barre has 
been called the eastern gateway to the Wyoming 
Valley, and a very beautiful gateway it is, girt 
about by mountains with the broad Susque- 
hanna flowing between the old and the newer 
part of the town over toward Kingston. It has, 
in addition to its natural advantages, all that 
loyal and intelligent citizenship can do to make 
it a delightful place of residence. There are 
river banks in many towns that, like Words- 
worth's primrose, are river banks and nothing 
more; but here the bank of the Susquehanna 
has been made into a riverside park, with walks 
and seats conveniently placed. Here we sat in 
the evening for hours, enjoying the beauty of 
the shining river, the mountains beyond and 
near us the parterres of fragrant flowers, with 

268 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 

which the walks are bordered. On River Street, 
and on Franklin and West South street are the 
beautiful homes of the old Will^es-Barre fam- 
ilies, most of whom have been loyal to their own 
town probably because they could find no better 
place of residence. 

This city has never been recommended to us 
as a summer resort, although the Wyoming Val- 
ley Hotel is said to have been often filled with 
summer visitors back in the sixties. The evening 
of our arrival happened to follow one of the 
cool days that sometimes break in upon the tor- 
rid heat of midsummer, and as we strolled about 
the streets it seemed strange to have all our 
friends away from this pleasant, breezy town. 
They were probably sitting by blazing wood fires 
at Bear Creek, Bear Lake or Harvey's Lake, 
rejoicing over the coolness of their surround- 
ings and wasting no end of sympathy over the 
unfortunate denizens of cities. 

Of course, we spent the entire morning in the 
rooms of the very attractive Historical Society 
on Franklin Street, where we found much to 
interest us, among other things a delightful 
paper in which Mr. George R. Bedford, of 
Wilkes-Barre, has given his own early recol- 
lections of this city and the surrounding towns. ^ 
The literature of the most noted historical event 

^ Mr. Bedford's valuable paper has since been added to 
and printed under the title " Some Early Recollections." 

269 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

of this region, the Wyoming massacre, is, of 
course, inexhaustible; but it was interesting to 
get the result of the latest studies of this sub- 
ject, for the members of this Society are always 
delving into records of the past and throwing 
new light on bygone days. Not long since 
they discovered that Major John Butler, who 
came down the Susquehanna with his eleven 
thousand British Tories and Indians to demand 
the surrender of the Wyoming forts, with their 
Continental stores, was a shade less black than 
he had been painted. 

'*! have always thought of him as jet black," 
I said, ''and I don't like to have him 
painted gray. ' ' 

''But we must be exact," said Sarah, who is 
nothing if not accurate. ' ' The employing of the 
savages against our people was the serious mis- 
take ; the fact that the French had already used 
them does not exonerate the British for leading 
them against their own Colonists ; but later re- 
searches show that Major Butler warned the 
people who had taken refuge in Forty Fort to 
remain there and to destroy all liquor, as other- 
wise he would not be able to control them. From 
his own family history Mr. Bedford has been 
able to prove that Major Butler did everything 
in his power to protect the inmates of the fort. 
He says: 'Major Butler advised our family and 
others of their neighbors to leave the fort as 

270 



i 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 

quietly as possible and make their escape. 
Under cover of darkness they found their way 
to the river shore, where a boat was in readi- 
ness. They went on board and floated down 
stream with the current, aided by a pair of oars, 
and the next night reached the Nescopeck Rap- 
ids, where on the river's bank there was a cabin. 
Some of the members of the party proposed 
that they should land and occupy the cabin over 
night. Others, more cautious, advised continu- 
ing the journey in the boat, and fortunately 
their advice prevailed. A boat following with 
its occupants landed, the boat was moored and 
the party availed themselves of the cabin's 
shelter, but, sad to say, every one of them was 
massacred by the Indians the same night.' " ^ 

It is a strange coincidence that the opposing 
forces were both led by Butlers, who are said 
to have been related. Major Jolin Butler, who 
led the Tories and Indians, was from Connecti- 
cut, while Colonel Zebulon Butler, a Continental 
officer, who was at home on leave, was placed 
in command of the home troops. The force of 
the enemy was considerably underestimated 
when Colonel Butler entered the engagement, 
and although he did everything to stem the tide 
of disaster, a defeat was inevitable, which was 
followed by a frightful massacre and looting 
of the fort by the Indians. 

^ " Some Early Recollections," by George R. Bedford. 
18 271 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Of course, the British had nothing to do with 
the massacre, except that they had taken into 
their service Indians, whom they were unable to 
control when their savage instincts were ex- 
cited by warfare and bloodshed, although Major 
Butler is said to have done everything in his 
power to restrain them. After the surrender, 
the famous Seneca squaw, Queen Esther, led the 
Indians into the fort and herself presided over 
the fatal ring. 

Several efforts have been made to exonerate 
the savage Queen from the barbarities attrib- 
uted to her, and in which she doubtless gloried ; 
but too many persons living near the scene of 
the massacre have testified to her crimes. Mrs. 
Perkins gives the story as related by her aged 
aunt, Mrs. Durkee: ''Fifteen or sixteen of our 
men who had been taken prisoners by the In- 
dians, were assembled to receive their death- 
blow by the hand of Queen Esther, a large 
middle-aged Seneca squaw, who had such honors 
assigned her. 

*'In this case it was thought to be revenge 
for the death of her son, who was killed by the 
whites. Some of the prisoners made their escape 
from the ring ; others attempted it, but were uur 
successful. . . . The remaining twelve or 
more were murdered with the tomahawk by the 
hand of this savage Queen on the 'Bloody Rock,' 
which may still be seen." 

272 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 

An interesting and less horrible story of 
Indian capture is that of Frances Slocum as told 
by Mrs. John C. Phelps: ''Four months after 
the battle of Wyoming, on the 2d of November, 
1778, Frances Slocum, a little girl of five years, 
was stolen by the Indians, never to be seen again 
by her mother and not by her brothers and sis- 
ters until she was a woman sixty-four years 
of age. About forty days after her abduc- 
tion, Isaac Tripp, her grandfather, and Jona- 
than Slocum, her father, were speared, toma- 
hawked and scalped by the savages. They were 
members of the Society of Friends, and had 
been unmolested by the Indians until Mr. Slo- 
cum 's eldest son, Giles, a boy of seventeen years, 
had joined the band of patriots on the mem- 
orable 3d of July; then the family seem to have 
been a shining mark for Indian vengeance. " 

The sequel to this story is interesting, as 
told by Mr. J. F. Meginness, and reveals a more 
favorable side of Indian character than those 
which we are wont to hear. About six years 
after the massacre, ''in 1784, two of Frances' 
brothers made a journey north to search for 
her. One hundred guineas were offered for her, 
but she was not found. Again in 1788 the 
brothers visited the Indian country. Mrs. 
Slocum lived for twenty-nine years after her 
child was stolen. It was nearly sixty years 
after when news was received that the white 

273 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

wife of an Indian in a western state was sus- 
pected to be Frances. It was Colonel George 
W. Ewing, an Indian trader of Logansport, In- 
diana, who noticed the white woman. He wrote 
to the Lancaster postmaster all the facts he 
could discover about her. This letter fell into 
the hands of John W. Forney, who published it 
in his paper, the Intelligencer. So it came to the 
Slocum family, who communicated with Colonel 
Ewing. Upon receiving further details two 
brothers and a sister, Mrs. Towne, journeyed 
to the Indians to verify the story. Accom- 
panied by interpreters, they visited the Miami 
village and met the Chief. Then on to Deaf 
Man 's Village, where the captive woman resided 
with her two daughters. Being assured that it 
was really Frances, they persuaded her and her 
family to go back to the town with them, and 
after spending a night there and hearing all 
that the woman could tell of her capture, she 
accepted them as relatives and presented them 
with a piece of fresh venison as a proof of 
friendliness. Frances said that she had always 
been treated well by the Indians. She had first 
married a Delaware and after he left her she 
married a Miami, 'a chief and a deaf man.' 
She refused to go back with her family to 
civilization, saying, *I cannot, I cannot, I am an 
old tree. I was a sapling when they took me 
away. I am happy here. I shall die here and 

274 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 

lie in that gi-aveyard and they will raise the 
pole at my grave with the white flag on it, and 
the Great Spirit will know where to find me. ' ' ^ 

There is a romantic tradition as to the sec- 
ond marriage of Frances to a Miami. "While 
her foster parents were floating down a river in 
a canoe in central Ohio, she was riding a horse 
on the shore and discovered an Indian lying in 
the path wounded. She dismounted and dressed 
his wounds, and her parents took him with them 
and cared for him till he was well. After that 
he supplied them with game for a time and then 
proposed going away. They were opposed to 
this and finally offered to give him their daugh- 
ter in marriage if he would remain. He con- 
sented and the union proved a happy one. 

"Two years after their first visit, Joseph 
Slocum again went to see his sister, taking his 
two daughters along. Frances expressed joy 
at seeing her brother again. She was accounted 
a rich woman among her tribe, owning "three 
hundred Indian ponies, and cattle, hogs and 
chickens in large numbers. " 

We can readily imagine thrilling tales of 
these days of storm and stress in the beautiful 
valley of the Wyoming being told by father to 
son and grandparents to grandchildren by many 
a fireside in Wilkes-Barre and Plymouth. In- 
deed, we had heard some of these stories our- 

' " Franees Slocum, The Lost Sister of Wyoming," by John 
F. Meginness. 

275 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

selves, while we were spending some weeks at 
Bear Lake, a favorite resort of some of the old 
Wilkes-Barre families, the incident of Sulli- 
van 's expedition being dwelt upon, at length, by 
a distinguished jurist in our party. These 
stories were recalled to us by some references 
that we found to the unveiling of a boulder at 
Laurel Run, on which a tablet was placed to 
honor the memory of Captain Joseph Davis and 
Lieutenant William Jones of the advance guard 
of General Sullivan's forces. In writing of 
this casualty one of the company said : 

*' Getting mthin two miles of Wyoming, we 
had, from a fine eminence, an excellent view of 
the settlement. ... It lies in a beautiful 
valley, surrounded by very high ground; the 
people inhabit up and down the banks of the 
river and very little back. There were in this 
settlement, last summer, a court house, a jail 
and many dwelling houses, all of which, except- 
ing a few scattered ones, were burnt by the sav- 
ages after the battle of July 3, 1778, which took 
place near Forty Fort. At present there are a 
few log houses, newly built, a fort, one or two 
stockade redoubts, and a row of barracks; the 
settlement consists of six or more small town- 
ships. At the battle before spoken of, about 
two hundred and twenty men were massacred 
within the space of an hour and a half, more than 
a hundred of whom were married men; their 
widows afterward had all their property taken 

276 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 

from them, and several of them with their chil- 
dren were made prisoners. It is said Queen 
Esther of the Six Nations, who was with the 
enemy, scalped and tomahawked with her hands, 
in cold blood, eight or ten persons. The Indian 
women in general were guilty of the greatest 
barbarities. Since this dreadful stroke, they 
have visited the settlement several times, each 
time killing, or rather torturing to death, more 
or less. Many of their bones continue yet un- 
buried where the main action happened. . . . 

''Thursday, June 24th. — Was introduced to 
Colonel Zebulon Butler, the gentleman of whom 
much has been said on account of his persevering 
conduct in opposing the savages." 

"We saw pictures of a number of old Wilkes- 
Barre houses, among them that of Colonel 
Zebulon Butler, which he built about 1787 at the 
comer of Northampton and River Streets. Here 
he lived for many years honored and esteemed 
by the community that he served. The old house 
was removed in 1867, and its site occupied by 
the residence of Colonel Butler's great-grand- 
daughter, Mrs. Stanley Woodward. In this 
house, the first court of Luzerne County met, 
and from its session Timothy Pickering took his 
four days' journey to Philadelphia to make a 
formal return of the election to the Supreme 
Executive Council of the State. By this elec- 
tion Matthias Hollenbach, William H. Smith, 

277 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Benjamin Carpenter and James Nesbit were 
chosen ^'Justices to keep the peace." Colonel 
Pickering's house, built about the same time 
as Colonel Butler's, is still standing. From this 
house he was abducted by a band of political and 
personal opponents and kept a prisoner for two 
weeks, a proceeding that for lawlessness is onlj^ 
equalled in these days by the abduction of the 
best football player by some of the opposing 
team just before a critical game. 

Colonel Pickering's house was afterwards 
bought by General William Ross, and he and his 
son both lived here to the end of their days. 

When Luzerne County was organized it was 
named after Caesar Anne de la Luzerne, minister 
from France to the United States from 1779 to 
1783, in grateful acknowledgment of his services 
to the Colonists. 

This county then included Lackawanna, 
Wyoming, Susquehanna and Bradford Counties. 

We were shown many interesting collections 
at the Historical Society, some among them as- 
sociated with George Catlin, the artist, who was 
bom in Wilkes-Barre. Catlin was the son of 
Putnam Catlin, one of the four attorneys ad- 
mitted to the bar on the organization of the 
county in 1787. George Catlin was himself ad- 
mitted to the bar, but soon abandoned the law 
to lead the life of an artist. He painted the 
portraits of a number of distinguished persons, 

278 




'"''^VHi^JS^ ^A iijf 



-, .-s^iit^sefe-'^pps^^fe* • 



The P:ckering-Ross House, South Main Street, Wilkes-Barre' 







Home of Colonel Zebulon Butler, Wilkes-Barre' 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 

among these the well-known portrait of Dolly 
Madison in a turban and of Governor De Witt 
Clinton. Although successful in his chosen pro- 
fession, and after completing a large canvas of 
the Constitutional Convention of Virginia, while 
it was in session at Richmond, in which there are 
portraits of one hundred and fifteen of its most 
distinguished members, Catlin's interest cen- 
tered in Indian portraiture. He had already 
painted Red Jacket and Black Hawk, when 
these chiefs were in Washington, and in 1832 
he went among, and for some eight years re- 
mained among, the Indian tribes beyond the Mis- 
sissippi River, where no white man had pre- 
ceded him. He painted the portraits of nearly 
five hundred Indians and thus created an Indian 
portrait gallery, which he later exhibited in 
London and in Paris and, in fact, in all the lead- 
ing capitals of Europe, where his gallery excited 
great interest and attention. 

'*He related that on one occasion when ex- 
hibiting in Egyptian Hall, London, and the room 
was well filled with the nobility of England, his 
gallery was visited by a company of Ojibway 
Indians, whom another enterprising American 
had taken abroad for purposes of exhibition. 
Many of them were known to Catlin personally, 
he having spent considerable time in their tribe. 
When they arrived at Egyptian Hall, arrayed 
in their native costume, they greeted Catlin 

279 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

most effusively as an old friend, and when they 
discovered among the pictures the portrait of 
their chief, who was of the party, they gave the 
Indian whoop and joined in an Indian dance. 
The excitement, as may well be imagined, was 
intense and communicated itself to the English 
visitors. It proved a great advertisement for 
Catlin and removed any possible doubt of the 
genuineness of the portraits."^ 

A popular saying about Wilkes-Barre has 
been that its citizens woke up one day to find 
their wealth under their houses. This may not 
be literally true, but certainly rich deposits of 
coal were found near the homes of many of the 
citizens of Wilkes-Barre, and also at Plymouth, 
where there were fine old residences, such as 
that of the Eeynolds family, situated a half mile 
from the Susquehanna and just back of the pres- 
ent location of a great breaker. At one time 
it was considered quite an achievement to mine 
and ship to market *'in a single year fifteen 
thousand tons of coal — not the equivalent of the 
output for ten days of any one of a number of 
collieries of the present day. The money value 
of the coal shipped from the Wyoming Valley 
for a number of years past is the equivalent of 
more than fifty million dollars per year, all pro- 
duced from a territory three miles by twenty 
miles in extent. ' ' 

* " Some Early Recollections," by George E,. Bedford. 
280 



SUNBURY AND WILKES-BARRE 



The Eeynolds house at Plymouth once com- 
manded a fine view of the lower part of the 
valley with its rich farming lands, one of the 
most beautiful views of the Wyoming Valley, 
now much obstructed by breakers and culm 
banks. At Plymouth, as in many of these min- 
ing towns, we were reminded of Katharine 
Mayo's description of just such scenes as we 
saw before us: *' There, on the high skyline 
above the mountains, for mile on mile, the bold 
silhouettes of the breakers cut the sky. Peaks 
of coal refuse, absolutely conical, black as night, 
enormous — like unspent volcanoes or a wizard's 
dream — rise preposterous against the clouds. 
Strippings, sharp and raw as Culebra Cut, slash 
big scars of yellow across the plane. And every- 
where between, like the remnants of an exquisite 
verdant tapestry rent by swords and blown to 
bits by guns, lie the tattered remnants of the 
beauty of the world." 

*^Coal mines certainly do not add to the 
beauty of a landscape," said Sarah; *'we simply 
have to forget all about the charm that once 
belonged to this place and think only of the bene- 
fit and comfort that coal has brought to 
the world. ' ' 

The question as to who first used anthracite 
coal has never been satisfactorily settled. Judge 
Jesse Fell, of Willtes-Barre, used coal success- 
fully in his grate as early as 1808. This may 

281 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

have been the first successful attempt to use 
coal for domestic purposes ; though it has been 
claimed by Dr. Thomas C. James, of Philadel- 
phia, that he used anthracite coal in his house in 
1804 ; but he did not say whether he burned it in 
a stove or a grate. Like a great many other 
discoveries that have been of benefit to the 
world, the use of coal was probably found by sev- 
eral persons and in different places about the 
same time. 

One afternoon we went out to see the monu- 
ment erected in memory of those who fell in bat- 
tle in 1778, or were slain by the savages after 
the defeat of Colonel Zebulon Butler's troops. 
The inscription on this monument, which was 
composed by Edward G. Mallery, is beauti- 
fully worded and tells the story, the pathetic 
story, of the great tragedy in a few lines. 

Our last afternoon in Wilkes-Barre we spent 
near Dorranceton, where we were invited to see 
the wonderful rose farm of the Dorranee family, 
acres in roses of the most exquisite varieties. 
After enjoying the beauty and fragrance of the 
flowers and the charming hospitality of our 
hosts, we returned to Wilkes-Barre by the light 
of the moon, and with our hands full of roses. 
So our last associations with this town, whose 
early history was so tragic, were of moonlight, 
flowers and of music also, as one of the local 
choral societies was singing gaily when we 
reached our hotel. 



XIV 
A PENNSYLVANIA RETREAT FOR ROYALTY 

At the hotel in Scranton we found Kathleen 
waiting to greet ns and to rejoice in the roses 
we brought her from the Dorrauce farm, which 
were still fresh and beautiful. 

Lodged here in a comfortable hotel in this 
handsome, prosperous city, it seemed almost in- 
credible that this place, once called Slocum's 
Hollow, was of so little importance sixty years 
ago that it was not considered worth while for 
the stage from Carbondale to Wilkes-Barre 
to stop here. The inhabitants of Slocum's 
Hollow were obliged to board their stage at 
Hyde Park, and now Scranton is the third city 
in Pennsylvania. 

Kathleen was quite ready to fall in with our 
plan to visit Asylum, stipulating, however, that 
we should make a circular tour by Dundaff and 
Crystal Lake, which she wished very much 
to see. 

'■ * And that route, ' ' said Sarah, consulting her 
map, ''will take us by Montrose, which is said 
to be one of the prettiest towns in the state." 

Scranton, handsome city as it is, was quite 
too modem for us, and we set forth the next 
morning for Carbondale, a much older town than 
Scranton, and, like the latter, a place which has 

283 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

grown rapidly. When John Wurts came here 
to make his early explorations after ooal, Car- 
bondale is said to have contained only one log 
cabin, which was built to shelter him. A thriv- 
ing town is the Carbondale of to-day, and with a 
certain picturesqueness where the Fall Brook 
flows under its bridges, and the culm banks are 
not too near. 

The drive from Carbondale to Crystal Lake 
is through a gently rolling country, by brown 
mountain streams, with mountains in the dis- 
tance, and nearer, over toward Montrose, Elk 
Hill throws up two shapely peaks against 
the horizon. 

' ' This is the kind of country that I like, ' ' ex- 
claimed Kathleen, "wild and far otT from civil- 
ized places. I can really imagine Indians in 
those woods, they are so thick and dark. ' ' 

' ' If you had heard as much as we have about 
Indians in these last days in Wilkes-Barre you 
wouldn't be so keen about imagining them lurk- 
ing anywhere near," isaid Sarah. "We have 
heard thrilling tales, especially labout Queen 
Esther, of whom we shall hear more when we 
get up near Asylum and Athens." 

"You really must tell me those wonderful 
tales, Sarah; you know I love blood-curdling 
stories." 

' ' You '11 hear enough of them, if we meet any 
old inhabitants of Bradford County." 

284. 



A PENNSYLVANIA RETREAT FOR ROYALTY 

^'Wliich comes first, Crystal Lake or Dun- 
daff? " asked Kathleen. 

' ' Crystal Lake comes first, ' ' I said, as I knew 
this region well, and then to my surprise, Crad- 
dock, Kathleen's new chauffeur, pointed over 
toward a mountain whose top stood out clear 
and beautiful against the blue of the sky, and 
said, ''Many a time I've slept on the top of 
old Elk." 

*'0h!" I exclaimed, ''you kuiow this 
country?" 

"Yes'm, like a book. I was born over near 
Honesdale,the place they say the first locomotive 
started from ; but from what I 've heard, the first 
locomotive must have started from several 
places. Yes 'm, I 've hunted all over this country 
with the gentlemen that used to come up here 
after quail and pheasants in the fall. They don't 
come any more, and the city folks used to come 
in the summer to the Villa and to Fern Hall. 
It's curious they don't put up a big house some- 
where about here; it's high, about two thousand 
feet, and fine air. Here's Crystal Lake; 
you can't find anytliing prettier than that any- 
where. They used to run a little steamboat 
here; but that was before my time." 

A beautiful lake it is, a great sheet of water 
nearly a mile wide, shining like silver in the sun, 
framed in by well-wooded shores, and having a 
background of distant blue mountains. On the 

286 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

bluff above the lake a few cottages and bunga- 
lows are beautifully situated, conunanding a 
view of the lake and the mountains beyond. 

''Whose is that fine large stone house?" I 
asked. ' ' It has been built since I was here. ' ' 

''Oh, that's Mr. Johnson's new house. Fern 
Hall used to stand there. The Johnsons have 
owned property here for years ; and over there, 
right out on the lake, is the old Jones house. 
They've built a big new house on the farm just 
outside of Dundaff." 

On a hillside by one of the bungalows we 
were attracted by a garden of exquisite beauty, 
with arbors and arches and a sun-dial, all glori- 
fied by every brilliant blossom that lifts its head 
to the sun in July. I suddenly remembered that 
I once wandered through this lovely garden with 
its owner, and had come away with my hands 
full of flowers. Seeing her now, the most enthu- 
siastic of gardeners, at work among her roses, 
I waved my hand to her. She recognized me, 
begged us to stop and see her garden, and so 
for a delightful hour we were in a land of 
enchantment. 

As we motored through the village of Dun- 
daff, we were told by our informing chauffeur 
that it had been quite a place in its day ; that they 
published a paper here in 1820 ; that there were 
several shops, and that Colonel Phinny had a 
grist mill, saw mill, wagon shop and a bank here. 

286 



A PENNSYLVANIA RETREAT FOR ROYALTY 

''His home was in that house," said Crad- 
dock, pointing to a fine old-fashioned house with 
columns in front and a balcony above. 

The little town must have entertained great 
expectations of wealth and importance when 
coal wa,s discovered at Carbondale and Forest 
City ; but the coal deposits stopped somewhere 
between Carbondale and Crystal Lake, and since 
then Dundaff has remained very much m status 
quo, happier perhaps and certainly prettier than 
if it had become a mining town like Forest City ; 
but old residents still recall with pride the fact 
that their town came within three or four votes 
of being made the county seat. 

My friend, who has a farm near Dundaff, had 
often told me that her grandfather, Mr. Peter 
Graham, a Scotchman, came here early in the 
century with Mr. Redmond Conyngham from 
Wilkes-Barre, and was so charmed with this 
mountain and lake country that he bought a 
large tract of land. Mr. Conyngham afterwards 
laid out the village and named it Dundaff at the 
suggestion of his friend, Peter Grraham, in honor 
of Dundaff Castle, the home of ''William the 
Graham." Mr. Conyngham also bought land 
here and had a cellar and well dug, but does not 
seem to have built a house. Mr. Graham, how- 
ever, made this his summer home for many 
years, having owned two places near Dundaff, 
one called Moskesson and the other the Grange. 

19 287 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

These farms are both owned by Mr. Graham's 
grandchildren, a rather unusual circumstance in 
this country of constant change. We stopped at 
the Grange, a fine old place with a gently slop- 
ing lawn full of beautiful trees, most of them 
planted by Howard Spencer, Esq., of Philadel- 
phia, who owned and improved this estate of six 
hundred acres. My friend was away, to our 
great regret, and not being able to enjoy her 
hospitality, we turned our faces toward Mont- 
rose, driving for some distance through the 
Grange woods. 

We were tempted to make a detour 
to see Pleasant Mount, a pretty village, quite 
near Belmont, the home of General Meredith; 
but Craddock warned us that it was now 
twelve o'clock, and there lay thirty miles 
between Dundaff and Montrose, and not all of 
it over the best roads, so we concluded to leave 
Pleasant Mount for another day. I had motored 
there from Dundaff several years ago and had 
seen the monument erected on the village green 
in honor of Samuel Meredith, who, after serving 
under Washington at Brandywdne, Germantown 
and Princeton, upon the organization of the Fed- 
eral Government was appointed Treasurer of 
the United States. A letter from Alexander 
Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, still 
preserved in the Meredith family, shows how 
much he appreciated the cooperation of General 

288 



A PENNSYLVANIA RETREAT FOR ROYALTY 

Meredith. After his retirement from office he 
and his family came to live at Belmont, and the 
Meredith family were long associated with 
this region. 

Our way lay through Glenwood, which Crad- 
dock told us with some pride, was for years the 
home of Galusha A. Grow, who came here from 
Connecticut. SaraJi, of course, remembered that 
he had represented Pennsylvania in Congress 
for several terms, had been Speaker of the 
House, and strenuously opposed the introduction 
of slavery into the territories. We passed 
through Hop Bottom, as this is a great hop coun- 
try, and across Tunkhannock Creek, and so on 
to Montrose, which we could see some time be- 
fore we reached it, as it is a town set on a hill. 
And here in Montrose we have found an ideal 
village, with comfortable old-fashioned homes, 
many of them frame houses painted white, soft 
embowered in trees, the great sugar maples that 
belong to this part of Pennsylvania being 
largely in evidence. 

The town owes its pretty name to the Rose 
family, who came to this region many years ago, 
first settling at Silver Lake, ten miles from 
here. We find our surroundings so attractive 
that we have concluded to remain for several 
days. Kathleen and I would gladly stay for a 
week in the comfortable homelike house in which 
we are stopping; but Sarah has set her heart 

289 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

upon getting to Asylum, her Carcasonne, and 
then our time is limited, as we all have engage- 
ments later in the month. Sarah should be con- 
tent to stay on indefinitely, as her neighbor at 
table has antiquarian tastes and pours valuable 
information into her willing ears. This gentle- 
man 's grandfather lived near Asylum and he re- 
membered many things that his father had told 
him about the settlement there and the laying 
out of the town, which he says was really in- 
tended as a place of refuge for the royal family 
and the nobility at the time of the French Revo- 
lution, and arrangements were in progress to 
have the King and Queen escape from France 
and come to Asylum. A house being built far 
back in the woods was called the Queen 's house. 
Of course, the plans to bring the King and Queen 
to the United States seem to us now like fairy 
tales ; but they fit in with an equally fanciful story 
about the crown jewels of the Bourbons being 
buried somewhere in Virginia. All plans for the 
escape of the royal family were, of course, 
thwarted by the arrest of Louis and Marie An- 
toinette at Varennes, their close imprisonment 
in the Temple and their subsequent execution; 
but there may have been those who dreamed of 
such a possibility, and it is quite certain that a 
number of the French nobility settled at Asylum. 
We found an interesting little book that tells us 
all about the place, and Kathleen and I are now 

290 



A PENNSYLVANIA RETREAT FOR ROYALTY 

almost as eager as Sarah to see it. This very 
informing gentleman has been telling ns about 
Montrose also, and pointing out old houses to 
us, some of them with lovely doorways and al- 
luring porches, deeply shaded. It seems that a 
number of well-known families from Philadel- 
phia and other places settled here early in the 
last century, among them the Biddies, Drinkers, 
Posts, Webbs, Mulfords, and Jessups. Some of 
the old houses have been altered during that 
unfortunate period in the last centuiy when 
architects failed to appreciate the dignity and 
beauty of older buildings. 

A house on Church street that attracted us 
by the simplicity of its architecture and some- 
thing about its porch that seemed to speak of 
old-time comfort and hospitality was built in 
1818 by Mr. Silvanus S. Mulford, who came to 
Montrose from Long Island. This house, which 
has been changed little in the hundred years that 
have passed over its head, has an interesting his- 
tory of its own, for here lived the Reverend 
Elisha Mulford, who wrote The Nation and The 
Republic of God, books widely read in their day. 
Another writer who lived in this house for sev- 
eral years was Miss Emily Blackman, who 
compiled a voluminous and important history of 
Susquehanna County. In the early years of the 
last century WilKam Jessup brought his bride 
to Montrose, and they lived for some time with 

291 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

his sister, Mrs. Mulford. Mr. Jessup was later 
an influential man in this part of the State, and 
was Judge of the County Court in the fifties. In 
1835 Mr. Mulford sold his house to Mr. Jerre 
L. Lyons, who came to Montrose from Colerain, 
Massachusetts, with four brothers. One of the 
brothers, Lorenzo Lyons, was a missionary in 
the Sandwich Islands for fifty-five years. A son 
of Mr. Jerre L. Lyons, of the same name, was a 
missionary in Syria for some years. 

The Biddle and Drinker families lived for 
years in Montrose. Miss Anna Drinker was a 
poetess, known in literature as Edith May, it 
being the fashion in her day for women writers 
to modestly conceal their identity under a nom 
de plume. 

Among its other attractions Montrose has a 
delightful library on the wide village green op- 
posite the Court House. We could spend many 
pleasant and profitable hours in this building, as 
there are valuable books of reference here as 
well as lighter literature. This library was 
founded by Miss Clementine Cope, a German- 
town woman, who spent some summers in Mont- 
rose years ago, and whose country home stands 
on the road to Dimock. Being one of the wise 
ones of the earth, she realized that no com- 
munity of young people can be expected to grow 
up into intelligent citizenship mthout having 
access to good books. 

292 



A PENNSYLVANIA RETREAT FOR ROYALTY 

Even with all the allurements that this 
charming village offered, we resolutely turned 
our backs upon it and set forth for Asylum. 
Craddook, who unlike men in general and chauf- 
feurs in particular, does not object to asking 
questions, has been told that the best road is by 
Rush, a town which seems to have been named 
after a distinguished jurist in this region, and 
then on by Wyalusing and Wysox. We had the 
address of a hotel or inn in Asylum, and of an- 
other in Towanda; but as both of these places 
were unexplored regions to us, we left Montrose 
very early in order to have some hours of day- 
light in which to find accommodations for the 
night. After further inquiries at Wysox we con- 
cluded to motor on to Towanda, and in this case 
'* wisdom was justified of her children," as we 
found a comfortable stopping place in this town, 
which is a place of some importance, being the 
county seat. 

We motored over to Asylum the next day, 
and found it much as it had been described to 
us and well situated in a lovely bend of the Sus- 
quehanna. The township of Asylum lies be- 
tween those of Towanda and Montrose, the river 
forming the boundary on the north and east, 
between it and the townships of Wysox, Stand- 
ing Stone and Wyalusing. The growing Ameri- 
can town has pushed the early French settlement 
into the background ; but its traditions are still 

293 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

a part of the life of the place. The colony at 
Asylum is said to have been organized by the 
Viscount Louis de Noailles and another French 
nobleman, two wealthy Frenchmen, driven to 
this country by the upheaval in Europe. These 
gentlemen purchased an immense tract of land in 
what is now Bradford County, and established 
on the banks of the Susquehanna, just below the 
broad, low plateau occupied by the halfbreeds, 
a colony of Frenchmen, and called the place 
'' Azylum. " It has come to be known as French- 
town to succeeding generations. Many of the 
refugees who came here belonged to the nobility, 
and to people of luxurious habits pioneer life in 
log cabins was naturally hard, and to add to 
their discomfort, most of the servants whom 
they brought over deserted them. As these 
emigreswere helpless people, who could not cook, 
and were even unaccustomed to dress them- 
selves, their case was far from ideal. The annals 
relate that they were also often in danger on 
account of the people of ''The Tribe" living on 
the neighboring hills. When Napoleon came into 
power he sent for them all to return, and most 
of them gladly deserted their cabins among the 
giant trees and went back to sunny France. 
Others were scattered through this region, only 
a few families remaining in Asylum. Of the 
descendants of those who remained, some are 
still to be found here. Batholomew la Porte 

294 



A PENNSYLVANIA RETREAT FOR ROYALTY 

was one of those who stayed on in Asylum, and 
we find his name perpetuated in the town of La 
Porte in Sullivan County. Judge La Porte, a 
son of the first settler, a^ccording to Mrs. Perkins, 
was born at Asylum in 1798, where he lived and 
cultivated one of the most extensive farms in the 
country. He served five years in the Legisla- 
ture, being elected Speaker during the last ses- 
sion of his service.^ 

Another French settler who remained in 
Bradford, then Luzerne County, was Charles 
Homet, who came to the United States in 1793, 
and to Asylum three years later, where he lived 
to the end of his days. The name Homet was 
given to a ferry a few miles south of Asylum. 

General Durell was one of the well-known 
exiles, and we passed through a town north of 
Asylum which bears his name. Other names still 
to be found here are Le Fevre, Prevost and 
D'Autremont. Mr. J. M. Piolette settled at 
Wysox and Mr. Delpeuch, Mr. Peuch and others 
near Towanda. 

Now that she is dead and can do no harm, 
Queen Esther is one of the cherished memories 
of this region; indeed, her claims bid fair to 
rival in interest those of the French settlers. 
Traditions about her, so often repeated that they 
have become history, true or false, are something 

^ " Early Times on the Susquehanna," by Mrs. George A. 
Perkins. 

295 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

of an asset here, as they seem to bring curious 
visitors to this region. The older inhabitants 
love to talk about her. Sarah has enioountered 
several of them, as she always does ! they seem 
to come to her without any apparent effort on 
her part, drawn to her by natural attraction as 
the magnet draws the needle. Kathleen and I 
stand beside her and listen to all that she draws 
forth. According to these people, the savage 
queen was a tall stately woman, very beautiful 
and a rather pleasant person in everyday life, 
when the lust for blood was not urging her on to 
deeds of horror. And Mrs. Perkins gives the 
same impression gathered from the personal 
recollections of her aunt, Mrs. Durkee. "After 
the war closed, she (Queen Esther) was often 
passing from Tioga to Onondaga, unprotected. 
One time while Mrs. Durkee was residing in 
Scipio, N. Y., she came to her house on her way 
to Onondaga, with a sister who was much intoxi- 
cated, carrying a papoose on her back, and in- 
quired in broken English if she could stay there 
through the night and sleep on the kitchen floor. 
Mrs. Durkee being well acquainted with her, she 
was permitted to stay until morning and then 
went on her way. If, as some suppose, the In- 
dians have descended from the lost tribes of 
Israel, her name might be thus accounted for; 
or, what is more probable, she might have de- 
rived it from the Moravian missionaries, who 

296 



A PENNSYLVANIA RETREAT FOR ROYALTY 

had many stations among them and whose names 
they often adopted. She married Tom Hill, an 
Indian as forbidding as herself, and after she 
left Tioga she went to Onondaga to reside. ' ' " 

Mrs. Perkins says that there was no founda- 
tion for the story that Queen Esther and Cath- 
erine Montour were one and the same. It is now 
generally believed that the savage Queen was 
the daughter of Andrew Montour and his Dela- 
ware Indian wife, which would make her the 
granddaughter of the noted Madame Montour. 
Andrew Montour was himself the oldest son 
of Roland Montour and Margaret Frontenac, the 
daughter of the Count de Frontenac, Governor 
of New France, by a Huron squaw. Margaret 
Frontenac was afterwards known all over the 
middle colonies as Madame Montour, and was, 
unlike her granddaughter, friendly to the whites. 

Esther Montour and Mollie Brant, the sister 
of Joseph Brant, the celebrated Indian chief of 
the Iroquois, were both said to have been prime 
favorites of Sir William Johnson, and in their 
youth to have spent much of their time at his 
great house in the Mohawk Valley. Be this as 
it may, both of these Indian women had sons 
named William Johnson, and Queen Esther's 
hatred of the whites became an uncontrollable 
fury when her son William was slain at Wyom- 

* " Early Days on the Susquehanna," by Mrs. George A. 
Perkins. 

297 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

ing, and in the concluding part of the fight she 
herself led her halfbreeds, with tomahawk wav- 
ing aloft and urging her savages on with horrid 
screams and imprecations. 

After this there came the tragedy of Bloody 
Eock. 

"Are the stories sufficiently thrilling to 
satisfy you T ' I asked, turning to Kathleen. 

' ' Quite, I had no idea that there was so much 
material for a romance in Pennsylvania. What 
a wonderful novel could be written about this 
region, something even finer than Conan Doyle's 
Refugees! His descriptions of Johnson Hall 
are very interesting; but if he had brought his 
French hero and heroine down here, what a 
story he could have made of the life here at 
Asylum, and the troubles with the Indians 
and halfbreeds ! 

'* Yes, and Chambers might have made some- 
thing fine about Asylum in Cardigan, especially 
if he had brought his story down to 1797, when 
the Orlean,s princes were here. Louis Philippe, 
afterwards King of the French, and his brotheris, 
the Duke de Montpensier and Count Beaujolais, 
were traveling incognito at this time, and were 
said to have come to Asylum by way of Canan- 
daigua and Tioga Point. On their return trip 
by boat they stopped overnight at the ^Arnold 
Tavern' in Wilkes-Barre. These distinguished 
visitors probably met some of their friends 

298 



A PENNSYLVANIA RETREAT FOR ROYALTY 

among the refugees at Asylum, or Frenchtown, 
as it was often called." 

After making inquiries, Craddock found that 
the best way to reach Pottsville was by the State 
Highway, which runs quite near the Susque- 
hanna at Wyalusing. This road goes through 
Athens, where we were told again that this town 
was once Tioga Point, and that the site of Queen 
Esther's town was quite near. She has certainly 
left her mark all through this region. 

' ' She was a distinguished woman whatever 
her reputation may have been," said Kathleen. 
''I'd like to see her picture, we always have pic- 
tures of celebrities now. I only hope Catlin 
painted her portrait, all these people say that 
she was very handsome." 



XV 

DOWN THE SCHUYLKILL TO POTTSVILLE 

AND READING 

We stopped overnight in Wilkes-Barre and 
came down through Hazleton and another great 
coal region to Pottsville. The latter part of our 
trip was by the Schuylkill, which rises in the 
mountains south of Hazleton. Pottsville is an- 
other hill town in among the mountains, and the 
land in and around it was once a great pine for- 
est, where the breakers and cuhn banks 
now stand. 

Coal has been the great interest here for 
years, and a sharp rivalry has long been main- 
tained between this and other towns in the coal 
belt as to which one first found the precious 
black rocks. While Sarah pursued her gene- 
alogical researches at the Historical Society, 
Kathleen and I wandered about the town, uphill 
and down dale, and in the course of our rambles 
we were so fortunate as to meet an acquaint- 
ance who told us many interesting tales about 
this region and gave us a paper to read which 
answered some of our questions about the dis- 
coveiy of coal. There seems to be no doubt that 
Philip Ginther, a hunter, discovered coal at 
Summit Hill, Mauch Chunk, in 1791, while try- 

300 



DOWN THE SCHUYLKILL 



ing to dig out some game which had *' holed" 
among the rocks ; but earlier than that, in 1768, 
specimens of anthracite coal were found in Wy- 
oming and sent to England. Captain Halber- 
stadt has official evidence that seven or eight 
years before Ginther's discovery there was a 
coal mine in Pottsville, and his proof rests upon 
an Act approved by the Legislature of Pennsyl- 
vania, March 15, 1784, for the improvement of 
the navigation of the Schuylkill, so as to make it 
passable at all times, by enabling the inhabitants 
to bring their produce to market, furnishing the 
county adjoining the same and the city of Phila- 
delphia with coal, masts, boards, etc. 

This is incontrovertible evidence that coal 
was found here before 1784, unless indeed the 
good citizens of Pottsville were prophets and 
were making their arrangements for the future 
on the strength of visions of the black rock which 
had come to them. Even earlier than this there 
were evidences of coal having been found in this 
vicinity, for Scull's map, which was issued in 
1770, shows that coal had been seen and located 
on this map, for in no less than five places there 
appear conventional signs and over them the 
word "coal." "As to three of these localities 
there is not the slightest doubt. The first and 
nearest to Pottsville is on the Sunbury road, 
between the west branch of Norwegian Creek 
and Minersville, at a point at or near the junc- 

301 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

tion of this road with the road from York Farm 
Colliery, known as the Bull's Head road. The 
others are apparently near Silverton Junction, 
the first on the north side of the west branch of 
the Schuylkill, about midway between Westwood 
Station and Silverton Junction, the other on 
the west side of the branch flowing south from 
Llewellyn. The other localities are either in or 
very near Ashland. Comparing the water- 
courses on this map, made over one hundred and 
forty-six years ago, with the maps but recently 
made, one is struck by the near approach to 
accuracy of that map of long, long ago. At 
a time, indeed, when unfriendly Indians lurked 
about them, habitations were few and far be- 
tween, the surveyors subsisted on provisions 
carried with them and upon the game they were 
able to kill. All honor to these hardy fellows 
for the excellent surveys they made while en- 
during, no doubt, hardships and deprivations. 
In their maps they have left to posterity im- 
perishable monuments. It is to be regretted 
that the names of all members of the several field 
parties do not appear on the maps. Their 
names, however, are preserved in the surveyors ' 
note books." ^ 

The most interesting account of an experi- 
ment in the use of coal is that given by Col- 
onel Shoemaker: 

* Monograph by Captain Baird Halberstadt of Pottsville. 
302 



DOWN THE SCHUYLKILL 



^*I was induced to make the venture of taking 
the coal to Philadelphia from the success at- 
tending its use at Pottsville, both in the black- 
smith shop and for warming houses, and I could 
not believe that so useful an article was intended 
to always lie in the earth unnoticed and un- 
known. "When I induced Mr. Mellon to try the 
coal in the rolling mill I accompanied the coal 
to the mill, arriving there in the evening. The 
foreman of the mill pronounced the coal to be 
stones and not coal, and that I was an impostor 
in seeking to palm off such on his employer as 
coal. As a fair trial of it by this man or the men 
under him could not be expected, it was arranged 
between myself and Mellon, who was a practical 
workman, to experiment with the coal early next 
morning before the workmen came. 

''We accordingly repaired to the mill in the 
morning and kindled a fire in one of the furnaces 
with wood on which we placed the coal. After it 
began to ignite Mellon was inclined to use the 
poker, against which I cautioned him. Shortly 
after we were called to breakfast, previous to 
which I had observed the blue blaze of the 
kindling anthracite just breaking through the 
body of the coal ; then I knew it was all right if 
it were let alone, and I directed the men left in 
charge not to use the poker or open the furnace 
door until our return. 

''When w^e returned, we found the furnace 

20 303 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

in a perfect glow of white heat. The iron was 
put in and heated in much less time than usual 
and it passed through the mills with unusual 
facility and in the language of the workmen 
'like lead.' " 

The above story was told by Colonel Shoe- 
maker at a meeting of the Board of Trade of the 
Schuylkill County Coal Associations in 1823. 

Soon after anthracite coal was discovered in 
Schuylkill County, Samuel Wetherill, Stephen 
Girard and two other Philadelphia gentlemen 
drove to Pottsville and bought large tracts of 
coal land. Mr. Wetherill had several tons hauled 
in wagons to Philadelphia, piled up in front of 
his factory, and a notice put up inviting citizens 
to take some of the fuel, known then as black 
rock, free of charge and try it. One experi- 
menter became impatient after several attempts 
to ignite the ''black rock," and threw it into 

the fireplace in despair, disgusted with the d 

stuff, as he expressed it, when to his surprise 
the black rock soon became as red as the burn- 
ing wood, and the new fuel suddenly be- 
came popular. 

The most thrilling page in the history of 
Pottsville is that which relates to the Mollie 
Maguires, a secret association composed of less 
than six hundred members that for years terror- 
ized this region. It seems almost incredible 
that so small an organization should have 

304 



DOWN THE SCHUYLKILL 



wielded such absolute power. The Mollie Ma- 
guires professed to be a branch of the Ancient 
Order of Hibernians ' Board of Erin, and while 
all were Catholics, the church repudiated them 
because of their lawlessness. They became ac- 
tive about 1865, and for several years pursued 
a policy of murder, their chief victims being 
mine oflBcials, and the center of their activities 
being Pottsville and four or five other towns in 
the coal region. Iq 1873 conditions had become 
so intolerable in consequence of the network 
of intrigue that this organization had spread 
over the township and the many murders com- 
mitted that Franklin B. Gowen, president of the 
Philadelphia and Eeading Coal and Iron Com- 
pany, called on Alan Pinkerton to use his de- 
tective forces, to ferret out the murderers. 
Pinkerton sent James McParlan, a bright young 
detective, to the coal regions. The personal risk 
was, of course, very great; but McParlan en- 
tered with spirit into the adventure, and his 
description of his penetrating into the secret 
meeting-places of the conspirators reads like 
a Sherlock Holmes romance. He even ventured 
into the headquarters of the gang, a hotel and 
saloon kept by their ''big chief," Jack Kehoe, 
always creating the impression that he was one 
of their active members, the while constantly 
transmitting reports of the gang's activities to 
his chief and captain, Eobert J. Linden, of 

305 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Philadelphia, commander of the coal and iron 
police. Through McParlan's efforts, who was 
*'McKenna" to the Mollies, seventy arrests 
were made, and evidence obtained which sent 
many to prison for varying terms ; twelve were 
convicted of murder in the first degree and 
hanged; four of murder in the second degree; 
four as accessories, six of perjury, one of assault 
and battery and one of aiding a murderer 
to escape. 

Some of the older residents of Pottsville re- 
call the exciting days of the trial of the Mollie 
Maguires and of Mr. Gowen's wonderful presen- 
tation of the case against the outlaws, which 
lasted for many hours, but was so eloquent and 
convincing that they never thought of fatigue 
and were unwilling to leave the court room until 
its conclusion. The breaking up of the intoler- 
able tyranny of this secret organization was 
said to be largely due to Mr. Gowen's untiring 
efforts, and in the face of great obstacles, this 
region having been so completely terrorized that 
it was almost impossible to obtain a jury. 

Among the lawyers who tried these cases at 
a risk to their own lives were Judge Pershing, 
Judge Green, Judge Walker, of Pottsville, and 
many other jurists equally well knowni. 

Our day and night in Pottsville were cer- 
tainly interesting and exciting, with all the 
thrilling tales that were poured into our ears. 

806 



DOWN THE SCHUYLKILL 



Sarah was not as well pleased with her day's 
work, as she did not find all that she wished at 
the Historical Society. She may, however, be 
more fortunate in Reading to-morrow. 

The city of Reading is spoken of in a Gazet- 
teer that was issued from< the press of the 
Baileys at Yorick's Head on High, or Market, 
Street, Philadelphia, about 1795, as *'a post 
town chiefly inhabited by Germans, remarkable 
for the manufacture of wool hats and contain- 
ing about six hundred houses." This descrip- 
tion seems odd enough when we stroll through 
the large prosperous city of to-day with its 
handsome buildings and its over one hundred 
thousand inhabitants. The handsome Carnegie 
Library was only built in 1898 ; but many of the 
books which it houses date back to the old library 
established here in 1808. The fine jail, which 
looks like a castle of the middle ages, is of com- 
paratively modern date. Of this institution the 
citizens of Reading are said to take pride for 
two good reasons — on account of its architec- 
tural excellence and its dwindling patronage. 
The only building that seemed to us very old 
is the Quaker Meeting House, which is not so 
very old after all, as it was built in the 
last century. 

Although the life of to-day so overshadows 
the older town, Reading is an old place, having 
been laid out in 1748, and on an original Penn 
Manor. It may be said to the honor of the good 

307 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

proprietary that although he had a grant for 
the land from Charles II, he also paid the In- 
dians of this region for their interest in it. The 
streets were at first named after members of 
the Penn family, the one called after the Pro- 
prietary is still known by that name and is one 
of the principal business streets of the city; 
but Thomas, Richard and Margaret have given 
place to the more convenient but less attractive 
names of First, Second, Third and Fourth 
Streets. No encroaching business activities, 
however, can take away from Reading its de- 
lightful situation upon the river, with the moun- 
tains rising above it. 

This town experienced some exciting days in 
the autumn of 1777, when many of the inhabi- 
tants of Philadelphia took refuge here. Duffy's 
Tavern was a weU-known stopping-place ia 
those days. Jacob Hiltzheimer recorded in his 
diary that he sent his goods to Reading and to 
Northampton County, and he and his family 
came here later and stopped with General Mif- 
flin, who had a farm near Reading which he 
called Ajigelica. 

Under date of October 6th, he wrote: *'Set 
out from Trenton with my family for Reading, 
crossed the Delaware at Coryell's, and was di- 
rected to one Armitage, Bucks County, but he 
refused to give us lodgings, as did one Balder- 
ston, at the next farm, but at the third farm 
we were more fortunate. 

808 



DOWN THE SCHUYLKILL 



' ' October 10th. — Arrived at Reading, where 
we were received by General Mifflin in his usual 
warm manner. ' ' 

Some years later, under more cheerful con- 
ditions, Mr. Hiltzheimer recorded a jaunt to 
Reading with some friends, this time to a 
Christmas festivity, and under date of Decem- 
ber 25, 1787: 

' ' Christmas. We three went to Reading, by 
invitation of General D. Broadhead, and dined 
with him. There were nine at the table : Mr. C. 
Read, Mr. Dundass, Mr. D. Clymer, Mr. Moore, 
General Mifflin, Captain Falkner and myseK." 

Those who are familiar with Hiltzheimer 's 
diary and the number and character of the din- 
ners he attended can readily imagine what a 
jovial meal that was, and it is altogether safe to 
assert that there were some liquids as well as 
solids dispensed. 

Other estates in the lovely rolling country 
around Reading are those of the Heber Smiths, 
the Baers, De Bennevilles, Keims, Hiesters and 
Clymers. Joanna Furnace has been in the 
Smith family 130 years, the furnace having been 
erected in 1790 and the mansion in 1805. Sev- 
eral thousand acres of woodland are connected 
with the property. The furnace was in opera- 
tion until shortly before the death of Colonel L. 
Heber Smith in 1898, but is now practically in 
ruins, but the surroundings are most picturesque 
and beautiful, the house is in good condition and 

309 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

is still occupied during the sununer by the family 
of Colonel Smith. At Birdsboro; not far from 
Eeading, is the Brooke estate and the old Manor 
House, which is still standing. 

To add to the historic interest of this region, 
we were told that the house in which Daniel 
Boone, the Kentucky pioneer was born, still 
stands about eight miles east of Reading, and 
still more important the Lincoln homestead, 
owned by Abraham Lincoln's ancestors, is about 
six miles southeast of Reading. Mr. Cyrus T. 
Fox, Secretary of the Historical Society of 
Berks County, told us that he had a talk with 
Mr. Lincoln on the subject of his Berks County 
ancestry several weeks before his assassination. 

After we had seen something of Reading and 
taken some of the beautiful drives, we decided to 
go to AUentown, as Sarah wished to see a house 
there built by James Allen, of Philadelphia, in 
1770, and named Trout Hall, for the reason, as 
given by the owner, that all the mountain 
streams in the vicinity, the Jordan, Little Le- 
high and many of the others abounded in 
fine trout. 

'* A very good reason, certainly, for a man of 
sporting tastes!" said Sarah, ''and we really 
must have a full day in AUentown ; there is an- 
other old house that we should see, and as Beth- 
lehem is so near, why not go there for Sunday? 
Nothing could be more interesting than to spend 
a Sunday in the old Moravian town. And then," 

310 




Trout Hall, Allentown, Built by James Allen in 1770 



I 



DOWN THE SCHUYLKILL 



— we waited for the conclusion of the sentence, 
and Sarah, being an honest woman, added — 
' ' and then, there are treasures in the Moravian 
Archives that I have always wanted to see. " 

''And so you shall," said Kathleen, "and I 
have friends there who will take us to Nazareth 
and all the places around Bethlehem." 

The ride from Reading to Allentown is 
through a rolling, highly-cultivated country, 
with mountains in the distance to break in upon 
the sameness of the immense fields of corn and 
great meadows with streams running through 
them ; and as for white chickens, there seemed to 
be thousands of them dotted over the green. We 
had seen many chicken farms ; but never so many 
beautiful white fowls anywhere as there are 
here in Berks County. 

Kathleen was enchanted with these farms 
and wished to go into the chicken business at 
once. She even went so far as to get Craddock 
to stop at the Maxatawny Inn at Kutztown to 
ask if there were any farms for sale in 
the neighborhood. 

Of course, there were farms to sell; there 
are any number of them waiting to be sold, 
especially to prosperous-looking travelers, who 
tour in a Rolls-Royce. 

The road which runs for some distance near 
the trolley line is very good and as we sped 
along through Breinigsville and Trexlertown, I 
remembered that the ancestors of the Trexlers, 

311 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

of Allentown, settled near here before 1720 on 
land purchased from Caspar Wister, and here 
Peter Trexler, son of Peter Trexler, the settler, 
was bom in 1721. He was a useful citizen, hav- 
ing served as Colonial Justice of the Peace from 
1753 to 1776, and afterwards as a Justice of the 
Peace for the United States. He was also one of 
the first county commissioners of Northampton 
County. Judge Trexler is the ancestor of Gen- 
eral H. C. Trexler and the Hon. Frank M. Trex- 
ler, of AUentown. 

I once made this trip in May and can never 
forget the beauty of the farms of this region 
and the great orchards, with the pear blos- 
soms still like a white cloud upon the trees, and 
the apple blossoms in full pink and white per- 
fection. General Trexler 's vast apple orchards 
were a joy to behold and the blossoms filled the 
air with fragrance. Those fortunate travelers 
who have been to Japan say that nothing out- 
side of that Island Kingdom can equal these Al- 
lentown orchards. 

Our roads have been beside rivers so much 
of the route that we quite missed them on our 
tour from Eeading to AllentoAvn, and we did not 
even cross Jordan Creek, as that mountain 
stream flows into the Lehigh River north of Al- 
lentown. Here the Lehigh makes a sudden curve 
in order to flow through the old town 
of Bethlehem and on to Easton, where it joins 
the Delaware. 



XVI 
ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

Allentown is set down in ''Scott's Gazet- 
teer" of 1795 as a handsome andflourishing town 
of Northampton County, with about ninety dwell- 
ings. At that time there were only twenty- three 
counties in Pennsylvania, and Lehigh was still a 
part of Northampton County. The AUentown 
of to-day certainly presents a striking contrast 
to this description, with its wide streets, fine 
residences, extensive and handsome hospital, 
college buildings and many churches. 

We were fortunate in having friends in 
AUentown who took us about, showed us the 
places we wished to see, and at Trout Hall which 
is now the headquarters of the Lehigh Historical 
Society we met some of its members, who told us 
many interesting things about the town and the 
old houses here. 

It seems that Northampton was the name 
given to AUentown, when Chief Justice AUen 
had the town laid out in 1762 on his land. Even 
before this, Mr. Allen, having become the owner 
of five thousand acres on the west bank of the 
Lehigh, had built for himself a log house, near 
the banks of Joi-dan Creek, to be used for his 

818 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

friends and himself as a hunting and fishing 
lodge. This log house of 1740 was the first build- 
ing on the Allen tract, and in 1763 sixteen men 
were taxed as residents of the village, among 
them Simon Brenner, Martin Derr, David 
Deshler, Peter Schwab and Judge Rhoads who 
had already built a substantial stone house here. 
The streets of the new town were named for 
prominent men in the Province, as Penn, Hamil- 
ton, Chew, Allen, Turner, and also after the 
streets of Philadelphia. 

Colonel James Burd was evidently interested 
in the new town as he bought several lots here 
as early as 1762, and had a house built on his 
property ; but during the next years, while Chief 
Justice Allen and his daughters were in Eng- 
land, a serious calamity befell the little town, 
which changed Colonel Burd's plans, and seri- 
ously retarded its growth. ' * On the 8th of Octo- 
ber," says Mr. Charles R. Roberts, '^a band of 
Indians descended upon Allen and Whitehall 
townships, only six miles distant from Allen- 
town, and killed fifteen persons. In a few hours 
the town was crowded with refugees, and al- 
though it was Sunday, Rev. Jacob Joseph Roth, 
a Lutheran minister, who was conducting a ser- 
vice in the log church at Hamilton and Church 
Streets, was compelled to stop the service and 
assist Colonel Burd, who had arrived in the 
town, to form a company to protect the town. 

314 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

George Wolf was chosen Captain, and Abraham 
Rinker, Lieutenant, of a company of twenty-five 
men organized. ' ' 

Writing of this event later Colonel Burd 
says : ' ' This new Indian war has altered the 
situation of my affairs greatly. I thought to 
have been very pleasantly situated at North- 
ampton with my family and have rendered some 
small marks of my gratitude to one of my best 
friends. I think it would be best if agreeable 
to Mr. Allen and you that Mr. Gordon should 
give directions about the management of the 
town to the best man he can find upon the spot. 
I mean, to prevent abuses on the Plantation, in 
cutting down the Timber, as it is out of my 
power in my present circumstances to do my 
worthy friend that service. The Plantation 
might be rented for a year until Mr. Allen should 
return from England if you thought proper, but 
the house should have a new roof immediately, 
otherwise it will all rot. ' ' 

Li 1767 Mr. Allen deeded to his son James, 
this town and all his land adjoining it, a princely 
gift of over three thousand acres, and it was he 
who built Trout Hall in 1770, so named " for the 
reason that all the streams in the vicinity, the 
Jordan, Little Lehigh, and Cedar Creeks and 
the Lehigh River, abounded in the gamy trout. ' ' 

" A very good sporting reason," said Kath- 
leen. ''Those old-time gentlemen were sports 

815 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

and had good times even if they lacked many of 
our luxuries, and they always seem to have had 
leisure to enjoy themselves in their day and gen- 
eration, which most people now have not. ' ' 

* ' When you see Grouse Hall, you will believe 
still more in the sporting tastes of those early 
land holders of Allentown," said one of the 
local historians. 

Writing in his diary in 1770, Mr. Allen said : 
''Two days ago I returned from Trout Hall (a 
name I have just given my house) where I had 
been with Mr. Lawrence, my brother Billy and 
Jenny Tilghman. We were at Heller's near the 
Wind Gap of ye mountain, but to our surprise 
did not kill one grouse. ' ' In June 1776, he wrote, 
' * This day I set off with my family for North- 
ampton, with the Chariot, Phaeton and Sulky." 
In September 1776, Mr. Allen visited New York 
and was received by General Washington at his 
headquarters, "with the utmost politeness," 
where he found many friends. June 6, 1777, he 
writes : " I am now fixed here, and am very busy 
in gardening, planting, etc. I visit Phila. once 
in two months. Mr. Hamilton is now at my 
house; he arrived here the 17th of last month 

and is very happy that he is so weU situated 

Since the Battle of Brandywine many thousand 
waggons passed my door and are continually 
passing in great numbers. All the baggage of 
our Army is at Bethlehem and here ; and what 

316 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

with Hospitals and artificers these little towns 
are filled. Every day some of the inhabitants 
of Philadelphia are coming up to settle here. 
The road from Easton to Reading, by my house, 
is now the most travelled in America. Many of 
the Congress passed by this place." ^ 

As we stood on the porch of Trout Hall, 
which was once the front of the house, and com- 
manded a full view of this road we were told 
why this turnpike was so much traveled as it not 
only led from Easton to Reading, but also from 
New York to Pittsburgh. A fine sweep of land 
slopes down from the porch to the road which 
is now Union Street, and here by this old house 
John Adams passed in November 1777, as Mr. 
Allen says, and by this road were removed 
the great military stores which had been col- 
lected here, and at Bethlehem, and Easton, all 
of which were taken to Carlisle after the British 
entered Philadelphia. 

We were taken to Grouse Hall, a little way 
out from the town, another fishing and hunting 
box; this one built by Lynford Lardner of 
Philadelphia who owned quite a tract of land 
here. This attractive house, with a long porch, 
beautifully shaded by great trees, was built 
sometime before Trout Hall, as Mr. Lardner 
wrote in 1753 of his tenant at Grouse Hall. It 
now belongs to General Trexler, in common with 

^ " History of Trout Hall " by Charles R. Roberts, pp. 4-7 
317 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

many properties around Allentown, and is used 
by him very much as it was by its first owner, 
'* Which proves," said one of our party turning 
to Kathleen, ' ' that people still find time to fish 
and hunt game, even in this busy world. ' ' 

Indeed Allentown, as we saw it to-day, 
seemed a gay, bright town where one might 
enjoy life; but then we viewed it under the most 
favorable circumstances, being motored to inter- 
esting places in and around the town. We even 
saw a large hatchery for fish where trout are 
cared for from babyhood to maturity, from mid- 
gets, the size of a pin, to the beautiful, shining 
creatures, with their red fins, that disported 
themselves joyously in the great tanks of the 
hatchery, a sight to arouse old Isaak Walton 
from his dreams to marvel over the resources 
of this great new world. We were told that at 
certain seasons the owner of the hatchery opens 
the sluices and allows the trout to swim into the 
Jordan, and other mountain streams. A most 
public-spirited act, and one to be commended to 
those who own property, where creeks and 
mountain streams abound! 

"Think of eating trout out of the Jor- 
dan!" exclaimed Kathleen. "It seems almost 
sacrilegious. ' ' 

"You are to have some of these trout for 
luncheon, not out of the Jordan, but from waters 
which are quite near it," said one of our friends, 

318 




lv ;^- 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

pointing to a stream wandering through a lovely 
meadow quite close to the hatchery. The speaker 
proved herself to be a prophetess, as moun- 
tain trout formed the piece de resistance of a 
luncheon fit for the gods, and were as good as 
they were beautiful, so having lived their 
happy, brief day in the water which they loved, 
they came crisp and brown to the festal board 
to add to our pleasure. 

*'A not unworthy mission to this world," as 
one of the party remarked with a brown trout 
lying on his plate. 

We had often been to Bethlehem, to the Bach 
festivals, and at Christmas and at Easter, which 
latter is the most interesting time of all. We 
knew its beauty at each season, in the spring, 
when the trees are decked in delicate green and 
the fruit trees are white with blossoms, and in 
the fall when the Lehigh Mountains are aflame 
in their gorgeous autumnal livery, and every 
tree and shrub is a burning bush. This year, 
even in July, we found Bethlehem fresh and 
fair, perhaps in consequence of the frequent 
rains; and most accommodating showers they 
had been, as they usually had come at night. 

Here in Bethlehem we three separated for 
the first time, I staying with a friend in one of 
the old buildings and Sarah and Kathleen at the 
Sun Inn, on Main Street, which with its wide 
arched entrance on one side, and the swinging, 

21 319 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

painted sign of 1758, made us think of some 
English inn far back in the centuries, such as 
one sees at Glastonburj'- or Canterbury. 

The back mndows of my friend's habitation 
look out upon the Lehigh Mountain, which at 
night is quite brilliant with the lights of the 
college buildings, dormitories, and fraternity 
houses. From the front windows of this house 
on Church Street, we could see two very old 
buildings, the Gemeinhaus of 1741, and the first 
Moravian Seminary for girls, built in 1746, 
familiarly called the **Bell House," as it is sur- 
mounted by an ancient belf rey. This building, 
with its vine-covered doorways under one 
of which we passed, through an arched and 
tiled hall to a garden, is one of the most inter- 
esting houses in the old town. Since the Semi- 
nary was removed to more commodious quarters 
further west on Church Street, this house has 
been used as a home for single sisters of the 
Moravian Church. 

Beyond the ''Bell House" is the ancient hill- 
side graveyard, with its great trees under whose 
overshadowing branches many of the Fathers of 
the Church, and the Mothers also, sleep their last 
sleep. Here also are the graves of a number of 
Christian Indians, as the early Moravians were 
most successful missionaries among the natives, 
and many interesting stories are told of their 
experiences with some of their converts. 

320 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

During the first visit to Bethlehem, of Count 
Zinzendorf, a death occurred in the conimunity, 
and as Bishop Levering says : ' ' In conducting 
the funeral, Zinzendorf consecrated the ground 
as the 'God's Acre 'of the settlement, the present 
historic old cemetery. It was at first often 
called Bethlehem's Hutberg, after the hill of 
that name, in which the cemetery of Herrnhut 
is situated.2 

Count Zinzendorf, himself a great mission- 
ary and leading spirit in the Church of the 
Unitas Fratrum, has been well represented by 
a long line of devoted Moravian ministers, of 
whom the most distinguished in America have 
been Bishops Edmund A. de Schweinitz of Beth- 
lehem, and Emil de Schweinitz of Salem, 
North Carolina. 

The present Seminary building on West 
Church Street is by no means of recent construc- 
tion, as a portion of it was built some years 
before the Revolutionary War. A bronze tablet 
on the right side of the entrance records the fact 
that in this building, then used as the Brothers ' 
House, a number of wounded Continental sol- 
diers were cared for, in 1776 and again from 
September, 1777 until April, 1778. This was 
the time that the Marquis de Lafayette was 
here after the Battle of the Brandywine. He and 
all the other officers and soldiers were tenderly 
cared for by the good sisters. 

^ " History of Bethlehem," by Bishop Joeeph M. Levering, 
p. 142. 

321 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

After speaking of the arrival in Bethlehem 
of John Hancook and a number of Congressmen 
in September, 1777, Bishop Levering says : 

''Another came, to whose personality and 
sojourn at Bethlehem, a special interest and 
somewhat of romance attached. This was the 
brave and gallant young French Nobleman, the 
Marquis de Lafayette, whose devotion of himself 
and his fortune to the cause of American free- 
dom remains one of the finest features of the 
sublime struggle. Wounded in the bloody con- 
flict at Brandj^vine, which sent such a ghastly 
train to Bethlehem, he came with a suite of 
French officers to seek medical care at this place. 
From the Sun Inn he was taken to the neighbor- 
ing house of George Frederick Boeckel, superin- 
tendent of the Bethlehem farm. There he was 
attentively nursed by Boeckel 's wife Barbara 
and daughter Liesel, and pretty little stories 
with variations, connected with his sojourn 
under that roof, were current among the local 

traditions many years afterwards." 

* ***** 

"The wounded soldiers began to arrive on 
September 21, and day after day, they came, 
besides many sick, until when on October 22, a 
final train of wagons arrived with their loads of 
groaning sufferers, they had to be sent to 
Easton. The surgeons refused to receive any 
more. There were then over four hundred in 
the Brothers' House and fifty in tents in the 

322 




"Bell House," Built in 1746, now Single Sisters House, Bethlehem 




Easier M(jrnin(j in Bethlehem Graveyard 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

rear of it, besides numerous sick officers in 
other buildings. ' ' ^ 

There is another bronze tablet in the facade 
of the Seminary building placed there by the 
Sons of the Revolution, in memory of the Con- 
tinental soldiers who died here. The Brothers' 
House is the oldest part of the building, and the 
rear view from the playground is quaint and 
picturesque. The great shaded lawn at the back 
of the Seminary, which extends to the river bank, 
is an ideal playground for the school girls dur- 
ing term time. 

To enter into the spirit of old Bethlehem 
one should be here at Christmas or Easter, the 
latter being the great festival of the year when 
the members of the Church meet in the grave- 
yard at dawn and salute one another with the 
Scripture words, ''Christ is Bisen," a most 
beautiful and impressive custom! 

At Christmas the interesting story of the 
naming of their town must often recur to its 
citizens of to-day. Nicholas Lewis, Count Zin- 
zendorf , was in America in 1741 upon a mission- 
ary tour, and according to one of the early 
Moravian chronicles: 

"The Count arrived in the Forks [of the 
Delaware] a few days before Christmas. While 
celebrating the vigils of Christmas Eve in the 

' " History of Bethlehem, Pa.," by Joseph M. Levering, 
Bishop of the Moravian Church, p. 465. 

323 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

first house and as we were closing the services 
(it was already past 9 o'clock), the Count led 
the way into the stable that adjoined our dwell- 
ing and commenced singing the hymn that opens 
with the words, ^NicJit Jerusalem, sondern Beth- 
lehem, aus dir kommet was mir frommet,' and 
from this touching incident the settlement 
received the name of Bethlehem/'* 

Christmas is still ushered in with a trombone 
serenade from the steeple of the church on the 
afternoon before, and is celebrated with a love 
feast, and in addition to this the ' ' dieners, ' ' dur- 
ing the service, bring in on huge trays hundreds 
of lighted wax tapers, which are distributed 
while the congregation sings : 

Behold a great, a heavenly light 

From Bethlehem's manger shining bright. 

It is needless to say that children look for- 
ward to this festive occasion with great delight. 
The glee with which these tapers are received 
by everj^ child attending the love feast, as well 
as by most of the grown-up folks, is beautiful 
to behold. The solemnity of these occasions, 

* These lines, sung by Count Zinzendorf, were taken from 
a hymn by Adam Drese, which has been thus translated: 

Not Jerusalem, 
Rather Bethlehem 
Gave us that which 
Maketh life rich. 
Not Jerusalem. 

"History of Bethlehem," by Bishop Joseph M. Levering, p. 78. 

324 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

mingled with the sweet strains from the or- 
chestra and the joyful faces glowing in the flick- 
ering light of the wax tapers, form a scene 
never to be forgotten. 

So much has been said about the marriages 
by lot among the Moravians that we were glad 
to hear an explanation from one well qualified 
to give it, a Moravian of the Moravians : 

"Its application [that of the lot] for many 
years to marriages in the Exclusive Church 
Settlements and in the case of persons officially 
serving as ministers or missionaries, was an 
attempt to carry out lofty ideals of a completely 
consecrated associate and individual life under 
Christ, the Head, and of complete subjection to 
Divine Guidance, believed to be given in every 
matter in response to simple faith, to be ascer- 
tained in this way. This particular application 
of the lot was relaxed in 1818. No official use 
of the lot by a board, involving a call or prop- 
osition to any person ever bound the persons in 
question without their previous knowledge or 
consent. It hound the hoard, if affirmative, to 
extend the call, or make the 'proposition, but 
not the person to acquiesce, except by previous 
understanding. Persons were not mated 
together for marriage, by a board using the lot 
in connecting one name with that of another 
without their concurrence. All official use of 
the lot was abolished by the General Synod 

325 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

of the Moravian Church held at Hermhut 
in 1889." 

One of Kathleen's friends took ns one after- 
noon up a winding road on the mountain side, 
through Say re Park, by the handsome buildings 
of the Lehigh University, and the picturesque 
dormitories and fraternity houses to the very 
tiptop, where we stood and looked down upon 
the town, old and new. 

The great belfiy of the Moravian Church 
stood out against the blue sky on this fair after- 
noon, it and its quaint surroundings forming a 
strong contrast to the busy new Bethlehem, with 
its many smoky furnaces, a hive of steel and iron 
industries. And beyond the clouds of smoke in 
the far distance, we could see the curved line of 
the Blue Mountains, the Wind Gap, Lehigh Gap, 
and off to the right, from where we stood, the 
Delaware Water Gap and at the foot of the 
Lehigh Mountain, the shining river Solving on 
as it had flowed before Bethlehem became a 
great industrial center, and even before the good 
Moravians founded their community here. 

On our way down from the heights we were 
taken by Packer Hall, the beautiful Eckley B. 
Coxe Mining Laboratory, and many other build- 
ings, including the chapel where the Bach Fes- 
tivals are now held. These days devoted to the 
music of John Sebastian Bach are foremost 
among the events of the year, and owe their 

326 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

great success to the untiring efforts and signal 
ability of Dr. J. Fred Wolle, the leader, whose 
grandfather played violinceUo and double-bass 
in Bethlehem nearly a century ago, and also to 
the warm cooperation of Mr. Albert G. Rau, and 
other members of this music-loving community. 
Dr. Henry S. Drinker, President of Lehigh 
University, is also the President of the Bethle- 
hem Bach Choir and among its enthusiastic 
members, as are Mr. Charles M. Schwab and Mr. 
Warren A. Wilbur, both of whom have given 
generously to its support. Indeed mainly 
through the liberality of Mr. Schwab and Mr. 
Wilbur the Lehigh Valley Symphony Orchestra 
has been able to give its members the pleasure of 
hearing a number of distinguished artists.^ 
The Bach Choir of to-day seems to be a natural 
successor of the "Singing Hour" described in 
the ''Bethlehem Diary" for June, 1742, which 
is the earliest recorded choral festival at Beth- 
lehem. There were eighty singers even at that 
early date, all directed by Count Zinzendorf . 

In 1744 a spinet from London came to the 
help of these musicians, and in 1746 it was a 
great day when this spinet was supplanted by 
an organ which was made in Philadelphia. 

Not until one hundred and fifty years 
after Bach's death was the Bach Choir formed 
at Bethlehem. 

^"The Bethlehem Bach Choir," by Raymond Walters. 
327 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

In September, 1899, the call for recruits was 
issued and in March, 1900, in the old Moravian 
Church, the first festival was given. 

And now, Mr. Waldo says : 

**A11 through the winter their souls are 
steeped in Bach until they know every shade and 
secret of the text and the setting. The tunes are 
running through their heads during housework 
or at the lathes of the steel mills. 

''They live for Bach in order to sing the 
music as it was meant to be sung. ' ' 

It is interesting to know from old Moravian 
diaries that Dr. Franklin enjoyed the good music 
in Bethlehem as early as 1756, and that General 
Washington, on the evening of July 25, 1782, 
was privileged to hear music on the organ and a 
serenade by the redoubtable trombone choir, and 
that Mrs. Washington, on her way to Virginia, 
in June, 1779, attended an evening service in 
Bethlehem and enjoyed the music of choir 
and orchestra. 

Another afternoon we were taken through 
Fountain Hill, where there are so many beauti- 
ful residences, across the fine Broad Street 
Bridge, and through a part of Bethlehem that 
has grown up as a result of the vast industries 
of the last two or three years. 

We are enjoying ourselves so much that 
Sarah and I could be happy here for many days ; 
but Kathleen is anxious to get back to Phila- 

328 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

delphia by Saturday. She is expecting letters — 
from what quarter of the globe she does not say ; 
but they are evidently too precious to be re- 
mailed to her here, or anywhere else, so to-mor- 
row we start for Chester, going by way of 
Allentown and Pottstown. 

And so, our minds fairly saturated with 
antiquities, we started on our tour. Pottstown 
appealed to us on account of its interesting 
associations as well as for the beauty of the 
grounds surrounding the Hill School, from 
which there is a fine view of the river; but we 
only stopped for luncheon as we hoped to reach 
Chester before night. AtPottsto^vnwe crossed to 
the right bank of the Schuyll^ill and came down 
by Phoenixville, passing the great Phoenix Iron 
Works, which have been successfully operated 
by David Beeves, Sr., and his descendants since 
1827, and near by, in Phoenix Park, are 
their delightful homes, whose hospitality we had 
often enjoyed. Not far from Phoenixville are 
the Knoll and Moore Hall, the latter a famous 
place in its day. In the town itself are some 
interesting houses, among them the Fountain 
Inn, which was at one time the headquarters of 
General Howe. In front of the inn is a marker 
on which is this record : 

' ' The Farthest Inland Point Reached in the 
British Invasion of the Northern Colonies 
During the Revolutionary War, September, 
21-23, 1777." 

829 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

"Not far away," says Dr. Fans, "is the old 
General Pike Hotel, built in 1807, and directly 
across the road is the Jones Mansion, built by 

John Longstreth. 

***** 

"Phoenixville was on the route of the Under- 
ground Railway on which so many slaves found 
their way to freedom in Canada. There were 
four stations in the neighborhood of the town, 
and of these the Jones Mansion was one. 
Visitors to the house are shown a wood closet 
in the chimney where the slaves were hidden 
during the day. Once a father and mother and 
their baby were crowded in these narrow quar- 
ters when the searchers came to the house after 
them. The baby cried, and Mrs. Jones was in 
agony. But the hiding place was not dis- 
covered, and that night the slaves were sent on 
their way. ' ' ^ 

Being near Valley Forge we could not deny 
ourselves the pleasure of a short visit, although 
we had all been here many times. Our first 
stop was at the Washington Memorial Chapel 
whose fine stained glass windows always remind 
me of the exquisite jeweled glass in the win- 
dows of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. This 
same beautiful glass has been used in the east 
window, placed here by the Pennsylvania 
Society of the Colonial Dames of America, in 
honor of Martha Washington, and in recogni- 

' "Old Roads out of Philadelphia," by Dr. John T. Faris. 
330 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

tion of her noble work at Valley Forge during 
the severe winter of 1777-78. The motif that 
runs through the Scriptural and historic scenes 
depicted in this window is sacrifice and is 
intended to represent the sacrifices made by this 
Colonial woman, who left her comfortable home 
to share with her husband the hardships of the 
winter in this encampment between the valley 
hills, and was so untiring in her efforts to add 
to the comfort of the soldiers under the Gen- 
eral's command. 

From the beautiful Chapel we made our way 
through the Park, and down a steep hill to the 
little stone house where the General and Mrs. 
Washington spent the winter. This house of 
Isaac Potts has been so little changed in the 
one hundred and thirty-nine years since the 
headquarters were established here that Mrs. 
Washington's description might almost stand 
for its picture to-day : 

In a letter, written to Mrs. Lund Washington 
soon after her arrival, Mrs. Washington said : 
**The apartment for business is only about 
sixteen feet square and has a large fireplace. 
The house is built of stone. The walls are very 
thick and below a deep east window, out of 
which the General can look out upon the encamp- 
ment, he had a box made, which appears as a 
part of the casement, with a blind trapdoor at 
the top, in which he keeps his valuable papers." 

And here we found the little box beneath the 

381 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

east window, seventeen inches long and ten and 
a half inches deep, divided into two compart- 
ments. To think that papers upon which, to a 
certain extent hung the fate of a nation, should 
have been stored away in that tiny box seemed 
no less wonderful than that GeneralWashington 
and his officers should have been able to hold 
their councils of war in this little room only 
thirteen feet square, even smaller than Mrs. 
Washington described it in writing home. 

The log cabin, which the General had built 
to serve as a dining-room, is no longer standing. 
Here he dined with his '^ military family" and 
any visitors who came to Valley Forge. 

Mrs. Henry Drinker, who visited the camp 
in April, spoke of an elegant dinner being served 
to herself and her companions, Mrs. Israel Pem- 
berton, Mrs. Samuel Pleasants and Mrs. Owen 
Jones, after which Mrs. Washington entertained 
the visiting ladies in her own room. 

These Quaker ladies were on their way to 
Winchester, Virginia, to which place their non- 
combatant husbands had been sent, on the ad- 
vance of the British towards Philadelphia. 

So many interesting associations belong to 
this old stone house that we were loth to leave 
it; but Sarah consoled herself and us by saying 
that it was so near our homes that we could 
come here often. 

A short ride brought us to Malvern, and from 
there we found a good road to West Chester, 

332 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

through whose beautifully shaded streets we 
motored on to the King's Highway, one of the 
oldest roads in Pennsylvania over which His 
Majesty's mail was carried to Wilmington and 
Baltimore in Colonial days. We noticed a num- 
ber of fine country seats in and around West 
Chester, and one that attracted us especially 
was an old Hickman Homestead, a beautiful 
Colonial house, on the King's Highway, which 
is shaded here by great maples. Soon after 
leaving this place we found that we were passing 
through Media, a town made up of pretty coun- 
try homes, it seemed to us, and even more 
charming is its suburb, Moylan. 

Craddock is a perfect genius for finding 
roads and taking us by interesting places, and 
we were not surprised when he announced that 
we were now on the Providence Road and quite 
near Lapidea, the home of Senator Sproul.^ 
We stopped to see this fine old place, which 
belonged many years ago to Thomas Leiper, an 
able and enterprising Scotchman who came to 
America some years before the Revolution. 
Leiper made money and used it and his own 
ability for the benefit of his adopted country. 
He bought a large tract of land in what was then 
Chester County, which is said to have formed 
a continuous strip from the site of the present 

'At this date, July 1917, The Hon. William C. Sproul was 
still State Senator, as the election which made him Governor 
of Pennsylvania came in the next year. 

883 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

Swarthmore College to the Delaware Eiver. 
The house looked down upon the ravine of the 
creek and over into a wooded landscape on the 
other side. It was here that Thomas Leiper 
built his house, in 1785, on Crum Creek, which 
he named Strathaven. 

This house is still standing complete, oppo- 
site the quarry, immediately back of the Lapidea 
grounds and is occupied by Callender Irvine 
Leiper, a grandson of the first Thomas Leiper, 
who was bom in 1740. 

The Senator and Mrs. Sproul were away 
from home at the time of our call ; but we were 
hospitably entertained by their nephew and 
niece. This young couple showed us their own 
home on the grounds, a very picturesque old 
building, Lapidea Cottage, which bears the date 
of its erection, 1737, below the eaves, in the 
front of the house. Some antiquarians give it 
an earlier date. 

We were told that Thomas Leiper had built 
houses for his four sons. Another house is at 
Leiperville on the Chester Pike, and is sur- 
rounded now by industrial establishments and 
workmen's homes, and still another one was the 
old house which stood on the Lapidea grounds 
for many years. A fine doorway from this house 
forms a side entrance to Lapidea Mansion. The 
third house of this great builder, Leiper, was 
erected in 1818 for his son James Leiper, who 
married the daughter of Pierce Crosby, a 

334 










j^Zf^ \^^ 





Lapidea Cottage, Built 1727, now on Estate of Gov. William C. Sproul 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

wealthy and influential man, who lived in the 
old Crosby House at " Crosbyrille, " which is 
now on 24th Street, in the city of Chester. This 
house of 1818 now forms the central portion of 
the spacious and handsome Lapidea Mansion. 

In walking through the grounds we were 
attracted by the clock tower with its old bell, 
which struck an hour rather alarming to us, 
as we wished to reach Chester before nightfall. 
This bell it seems was cast at Bristol, Eng- 
land, in 1741, and for one hundred and fifteen 
years was the only church-bell in Chester. The 
bell hung on the old St. Paul's Church and its 
jangling during their quiet services was a source 
of much annoyance to the members of the only 
other religious denomination represented in 
Chester at the time, the Friends, whose meeting 
house was near the church. They adopted some 
resolutions protesting against it, and even ven- 
tured the assertion that * ' their bell-unsummoned 
feet needed no direction in finding their place 
of worship," 

Still laughing over this delightfully original 
protest, we turned away from Lapidea with reluc- 
tance and set forth for Chester, still on the 
Providence Road, which Sarah tells us is some- 
times called the Leopard Road and was one of 
the first highways to be laid out in Pennsylvania, 
adding: ''This is certainly a case of the first 
being last, for as the oldest town in the State, 
Chester should have been our first stopping- 

22 335 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

place instead of being left for the last lap of our 
journey. I am really ashamed that I have never 
stood upon the spot where our good Proprietary 
landed, when I have been to Plymouth more than 
once and stood upon the rock where Mary Chil- 
ton is said to have first stepped." 

"This must be the place," said Craddock, 
stopping the car near a boulder, now some 
distance back from the river, which proves how 
much the shore of the Delaware has changed, as 
the tablet says that William Penn landed on this 
spot on the 29th day of October, 1682. 

''It was upon a Sunday, the Friends' first 
day," said Sarah, "and then according to the 
ancient chronicle, 'with hearts full of gratitude, 
the little band at once proceeded to the house of 
Robert Wade, where the religious meetings of 
the Society were held, and gave thanks for their 
safe deliverance from sickness, death, the perils 
of the deep, and the persecutions of their native 
land.' It is all so interesting, and no wonder 
that these people were thankful to land after a 
voyage of fifty-three days ! ' ' 

"Yes," said Kathleen, trying to rise to 
Sarah's height of enthusiasm, "I wouldn't have 
missed coming here for anything." 

" Nor would I," and then remembering 
Smith's caustic account of the naming of Ches- 
ter, I repeated it as well as I could recall it. 
The little town then bore the Swedish name of 
Ooplandt or Upland : 

336 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

''Without reflection Penn determined that 
the name of this place should be changed. Turn- 
ing around to his friend Pearson, one of his own 
Society, who had accompanied him in the ship 
Welcome, he said, 'Providence has brought us 
here safe. Thou hast been the companion of my 
perils. What wilt thou that I should call this 
place?' Pearson said, 'Chester', in remem- 
brance of the city from whence he came. William 
Penn replied that it should be called Chester, 
and that when he divided the land into counties, 
one of them should be called by the same name. 
Thus from a mere whim the name of the oldest 
town ; the name of the whole settled part of the 
Province; the name that would naturally have 
a place in the affections of a large majority of 
the inhabitants of the new Province, was effaced 
to gratify the caprice or vanity of a friend. All 
great men occasionally do little things." ^ 

' ' Very unjust, ' ' said Sarah. ' ' William Penn 
never did anything so small, and Chester is a 
good old English name after all, and this town 
can never make a nobler boast than that within 
her limits was first proclaimed, upon the soil of 
Pennsylvania, as great a declaration of repub- 
lican liberty, as that drawn up in the cabin of 
the Mayflower in 1620. 

"Here are the words," and from a paper 
Sarah read standing by the boulder : 

* " History of Chester County, Pennsylvania," by Futhey 
and Cope, p. 21. 

337 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

''Whereas, the glory of God Almighty, and 
the good of mankind, are the reason and end of 
government, and therefore government itself is 
a venerable ordinance of God, and forasmuch as 
it is principally desired and intended by the 
proprietary, and governor and freemen of the 
Province of Pennsylvania, and the territories 
thereunto belonging, to make and establish such 
laws as shall best preserve true Christian and 
civil liberty, in opposition to all unchristian, 
licentious and unjust practices, whereby God 
may have his due, Caesar his due, and the people 
their due, from tyranny and oppression on the 
one side, and insolency and licentiousness on the 
other; so that the best and firmest foundation 
may be laid for the present and future happiness 
of both the governor and the people of this 
Province and territories, and their posterity." 

As Kathleen and I turned from the boulder, 
while Sarah still lingered beside it, she said: 
''Now that we have seen the wonderful stone, 
why can't we go back to Philadelphia to-night?" 

' ' You forget, my dear, ' ' I said, ' ' that we have 
an engagement to dine and stop overnight with 

the C 's, in Upland, and then Sarah would be 

heartbroken if we should leave Chester without 
seeing the Court House which she tells us is the 
oldest public building in Pennsylvania. Why are 
you so anxious to go to Philadelphia to-night?" 

"I am expecting a cable, Serina." 

338 



ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

''So I thought, but it is too soon to have a 
cable from Mr. Henderson." 

*'Ho*w did you know?" 

''How could I help knowing?" I said with 
a laugh. 

We made an early start the next morning as 
our friends wished to take us to the oldest house 
in Chester, which was built by Caleb Pusey in 
1683. In this little, two-story building on Eace 
Street, the Proprietary stopped upon the oc- 
casion of his visits to Chester. 

The old colored woman who has made her 
home here for over forty years seems much at- 
tached to her historic environment, and was 
evidently disturbed by the contrast which we 
drew between this humble cottage and the 
English mansions which William Penn fre- 
quented. She, however, solaced herself by 
giving us some side lights upon Pennsyl- 
vania history. 

"I alius liked the name," she said, " 'cause 
it's the husband and wife, Penn and Sylvania, 
that was her name. ' ' 

"Whose name?" we asked. 

"Why, Mrs. Peim's name, a gemmen come 
here and told me all about it. ' ' 

"But Sylvania was not her name, Mrs. Wil- 
liam Penn's name was Gulielma," and while 
Sarah, true to herself, stopped to explain the 
derivation of the name of the Province of Penn- 

339 



IN OLD PENNSYLVANIA TOWNS 

sylvania, Kathleen and I made our escape in 
order to enjoy a laugh outside. Sarah's only re- 
ward for her pains was to have the woman say,as 
she left some coins in her hand, ''Yes'm, every 
one that comes along tells me a different story. ' ' 
As we motored along Fifth Street we were 
interested to learn that here in Chester we were 
still on the King's Highway. We soon after 
turned into Market Street and saw the old Court 
House, which has been restored recently, and 
with so much care that it is a perfect reproduc- 
tion of the ancient building of which we saw a 
picture in the Mayor's office. Everything has 
been done with the greatest care and after a 
thorough study of the lines of the Court House 
of 1724, and so the restored building will stand 
as a valuable memorial of early days in the 
Province of Pennsylvania." 

^ The author must plead guilty to an anachronism here, 
as the Court House was not restored until 1920, and by 
Governor William C. Sproul. In speaking of it the Gover- 
nor said: 

" I have just finished restoring it [the Court House] 
under a contract with the city that it shall be maintained 
as a public building forever. I have always had great fear 
that it would be torn down, and its valuable site sold to 
provide funds for the erection of some modern city building 
in another location. It is really very quaint and beautiful, 
and is particularly interesting to me, in view of the fact 
that my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Nathaniel 
Newlin, was one of the Commissioners who built it and he sat 
there as a Justice for many years. When it was erected, 
there were only the three original counties in Pennsylvania — 
Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester — Chester County extended 
as far west as the Province was settled. It served for sixty- 
two years as the Court House for Chester County and sixty- 
one years as the Court House for Delaware County and 
sixty-eight years as the borough and City Hall of Chester." 

340 



AXLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM AND CHESTER 

In the course of his work on the Court House, 
the architect, Mr. Clarence "Wilson Brazer, has 
run across some interesting Chester data. It 
appears that Governor Sproul in restoring the 
old building is following in the footsteps of his 
ancestor, Nathaniel Newlin, who was a member 
of the Provincial Assembly for Chester County 
that appropriated the money for building the 
old Court House, in addition to being one 
of the Commissioners who had charge of the 
erection of the original building. Other mem- 
bers of the board were Robert Pyle and 
Samuel Hollingsworth. 

To add to the charm of this part of Chester, 
across a green courtyard and behind the old 
Court House a new City Hall has been erected 
which is on the same lines as the older building, 
and across the street opposite the old Court 
House is the Washington House, where General 
Washington wrote his official report of the Battle 
of the Brandywine. As we left Chester, and 
motored through Upland, which has so many 
beautiful residences, we rejoiced that the busy 
manufacturing city of Chester numbers among 
her citizens those who value her many ancient 
land marks, and are willing to spend time and 
money for their preservation. 



inde:^ 



Adams, Henry, cited, 189, 190 

Adams, John, 23, 110, 317 

Agnew, D. Hayes, M.D., 96 

Aliquippa, Queen, 220 

Allen, Chf. Jus. Wm. founds 
AUentown, 313-315 

Allen, James, of Phila., in 
AUentown, 310, 315-317 

Allen, Wm., professor at Dick- 
inson, 163 

AUentown, 48, 84, 310-319 

Allison, Col. John, lays out 
Greencastle, 133 

Allison, James, 133 

Allison, William, settler, 132 

Altoona, 195, 196, 247 

Anderson, Col. Jas., 209 

Anderson, John, of Bedford, 
234 

AndrC", Major John, in Lan- 
caster, 51-53 

Armstrong, Gen. John, 150, 
151, 161, 231 

Arndt, Henry, 92 

Asylum, retreat for King and 
Queen of France, 283, 284, 
290, 293-299 

Atlee, Dr. John L., 66 

Atlee, William, 62 

Atlee, Wm. A., 63 

Alexander, John W., 16 



B 

Baird, Mrs. Samuel, 166 

Baird, Spencer F., 162, 163, 
166 

Baker, Conrad, 49 

Bakewell, Benj., house of, 202; 
letter from Lafayette, 202 

Barlow, Joel, 77, 200 

Barlow, Mrs. Thos., enter- 
tains Lafayette, 199-201 

Barret, Captain, 206 

Barton, Dr. B. S., 59 

Barton, Rev. Thos., 59, 60, 62 

Barton, William, 52, 60 

Bauseman, Wm., 62, 92 

Bayard, Col. Stephen, 208 

Beaver, Gov. James A., 250 

Beck, James M., 88 

Beck, John, 88 

Bedford, 230-241 

Bedford, George R., cited 269, 
270, 271, 280 

Bedford Springs, 212; guests, 
235, 240 

Beissel, John C, 80, 83 

Bell, Martin, 195 

Bellefonte, 12, 13, 20, 248-259 

Benezet, Daniel, 92 

Bethlehem, 319-320; Bach 
Choir of Bethlehem, 12, 
326-328; Naming of, 323; 
Christmas, 323-325 ; Eas- 
ter, 322, 323 



348 



INDEX 



Biddle, Edward M., 167 
Biddle, Hon. Edw. W., 5, 159, 

cited, 151, 152, 160, 161 
Biddle, Lydia S., 166 
Biddle, William M., 166 
Biddies, of Montrose, 291 
Bigelow, Edward M., 211 
Bingham, William, 161 
Biuney, Horace, 263 
Birdsboro, 310 
Black, Jeremiah S., 236 
Black, Samuel, 236, 238 
Blackman, Emily, 291 
Bladen, Gov. Thoa., 41 
Blaine, James G., 156, 218 
Blaine, Col. Ephraim, 156 
Blair, Hon. John, 243 
Blimston, Samuel, 107, 108 
Boggs, Andrew, 96, 253 
Boggs, Jane (Mrs. Dunlop), 

253 
Boggs, John, M.D., 133 
Bosler, J. Herman, 168 
Bosler, J. Kirk, 159 
Bouquet, Col., 54, 145, 205, 

206, 232 
Bowman, Samuel, Bishop, 64 
Braddock, Gen. Edward, in 
Penna., 220, 221; defeat, 
225-227; monument, 228 
Brant, Jos., 297 
Brant, MoUie, 297 
Broadhead, Col. D., 207, 309 
Brown, John, Esq., of Phila., 

158, 165 
Brown, Hon. I. H., 42 
Brownsville, 217, 218, 223 
Buchanan, James, 13; engage- 
ment of, 64-66, 68, 99, 101, 
187, 188, 236, 238 
Bull, Rev. Wm., 34 



Burd, James, cited, 138, 139, 

314, 315 
Burnham, Valentine House, 

254 
Burnside, Judge, 236, 255, 

263 
Burr, Aaron, 198 
Burrowes, Thos. H., 60, 68 
Butler, Col. Zebulon, 271, 277, 

282 
Butler, Major John, 270-272 



Cadwalader, Judge, 263 
Calhoun, John, M.D., 124 
Cameron, Hon. Simon, 16, 174, 

188-190 
Cameron, J. Donald, 16, 95, 

96, 97, 188, 239 
Campbell, Benj., 202 
Cannon, Colonel, 213 
Canonsburg, 212, 213 
Carbondale, 283, 284 
Carlisle, 143, 168; settlement, 

146; suffers from Indians, 

145; social life, 154, 162, 

164; Dancing Assembly, 

164-166 
Carnegie, Andrew, 163, 209, 

210 
Carpenter, Benj., 278 
Catlin, Geo., 278-280 
Catlin, Putnam, 278 
Cessna, John, 137 
Chambers, Benj ., founds 

Chambersburg, 121, 122 
Chambers, Charlotte, in Phila., 

1795, 126, 127 
Chambers, Gen. James, 126, 

127 
Chambers, Ruhamah, 124 



344 



INDEX 



Chambersburg, 20, 119-132; 

settlement, 121; invaded, 

121; social life, 125, 126 
Chester Court House, 340, 341 
Chester, naming of, 337, 338 
Cheves, Mrs. Langdon, 101, 

102 
Cheves, Hon. Langdon, 101 
Clark, Martha B., 5 ; cited, 45 
Clarkson, Jos., Rev., 64 
Clinton, Gov. De Witt, 279 
Cloud, Joseph, 33 
Clymer, D., 309 
Coates, Moses, 37, 38 
Coates, Lindley, 109 
Coatesville, 37-39 
Coleman, Anne, 64, 65 
Coleman, E.obt., house at 

Elizabeth, 92 ; entertains 

Gen. Washington, 92; owns 

most of Cornwall ore banks, 

94 
Coleman, Sarah, 63-66 
Collett, Jeremiah, 33 
Colonial Dames of America, 

Penna. Soc., 106, 330 
Columbia, 99-109 
Conway, Moncure D., 163 
Conyngham, Redmond, 287 
Cookson, Thos., Surveyor, 46, 

47, 63, 110; in Carlisle, 147 
Cope, Caleb, Andre lodges 

with, 51-53 
Cope, Clementine, 292 
Cornwall, mines, 80 
Coxe, Eckley B., 326 
Craig, Isaac, 208 
Craighead, Rev. John, 131, 132 
Crawford, Edward, 128 
Crawford, Thos. H., 128 



Curtin, Andrew G., 13, 16, 
180-182, 250, 252 



Dallas, Trevanion B., 199 

Deland, Margaret, cited, 203, 

Denny, Gov., 231 

Derr, Martin, 314 

De Schweinitz, Bishop E. A., 

321 
De Schweinitz, Bishop Emil, 

321 
Dickinson College, 143, 158- 

162 
Dickinson, John, 159, 173 
Diffenderfer, Michael, 92 
Dillon, Mary J., cited, 143, 167 
Dinwiddle, Gov., 219 
Dock, Myra, 120 
Donegal, 95, 97 
Donnel, Mrs. C. B. of Sunbury, 

261, 274 
Downing, Thomas, 34 
Downingtown, 34, 35 
Drinker, Dr. Henry S., 327 
Dundaff, 283-287 
Dunlop, Col. Jas., 249, 250 
Duquesne, Fort, 231, 232 
Durell, Gen., 295 
Durkee, Mrs., cited, 272, 296 
Dysart, James C, 246 

E 

Eachus, Phineas, 34 

Early, Gen., 116 

Easton, 317 

Edge, Gov. W. E., 34 

Ege, Peter, 144 

Eichholtz, Jacob, artist, 16, 

67, 68 
Elder, Col. Thos., 174 



345 



INDEX 



Gibbons, Hannah, 109 
Gibson, Griffith, 249 
Gibson, Hon. John B., 154, 

155, 264 
Gibson, Mrs. John B., 156 
Gillespie, Neal, 218 
Ginther, Philip, discovers 

coal, 300 



Ephrata, 80-89 
Eshleman, H. F., 98 
Eahleman, J. K., 109 
Espy, David, 234 
Ewell, General, 116, 168 



Fahnestocks, 85 

Falling Spring Church, 121, Girard, Stephen, 304 

132 
Faris, John T., 32, 330 
Fell, Hon. Jesse, 281 
Finley, Judge, 197 
Fitch, John, invents steam- 
boat, 69, 78, 79 
Fletcher, Hon. Henry P., 96, 

134 
Forbes, Gen., 204, 23 L 232 
Fox, Cyrus T., 310 
Francies, John, 256-259 
Franklin, Benj., 15, 61; m 

Carlisle, 147, 148; Indian 

poUcy, 147-149; 227; in 

Bethlehem, 328 
Franklin, Hon. Walter, 56 
Franklin, Walter, of N. Y., 56 
Frontenac, Count, 297 
Frontenac, Margaret, see 

Mme Montour 
Fuller, Hon. Henry M., 263 
Fulton, E.obt., birthplace, 69, 

74, 76; artist, 69, 77; early 

inventions, 77-79; invents 

submarines, 78, 79 



Gabriel, Geo., 265 
Gallatin, Albert, 221, 222 
Geist, J. M. W., 71, 72 
Gettysburg, 112-118 
Gibbons, Daniel, 108, 109 



Gist, Christopher, 219-220 
Godfrey, Thomas, 79 
Gorham, Francis P., 157 
Gowen, Franklin B., 305, 306 
Graham, Peter, names Dun- 

daff, 287, 288 
Grange, The, 288 
Green, Judge, 306 
Greencastle ; Massacre in 

School, 132; 120, 132-135 
Greensburg, 196, 197 
Grouse Hall, 316 
Grubb, Curtis, 93, 94 
Grubb, Henry B., 92-94 
Grubb, John, settler, 92 
Grubb, Peter, 92-94 

H 

Halberstadt, Baird, 5, cited, 

301, 302 
Haldeman, Jacob, M., 174 
Haldeman, Mrs. R. J., 187, 

239 
Hall, Wm. McClay, 180 
Haly, Mrs. William, 175 
Hamilton, Andrew, 44, 47 
Hamilton, Gov, James, plans 
Lancaster, 44; meets In- 
dians in, 47; gives land to 
church, 61, 62; locates Car- 
lisle, 146, 147 
Hancock, John, 110, 322 



316 



INDEX 



Harrisburg, 12, 13, 168-190, Jefferson College, 213, 214 



233 
Harris' Ferry, 137, 147, 171, 

230 
Harris, Jamea, 249 
Harris, John, settler, 137, 

170-174, 191 
Harris, John, Jr., 173, 177 
Harrison, Edward T., 241 
Hartley, Mr. and Mrs. Wm., 

235 
Hastings, Gov. Daniel H., 250 
Henderson, Judge, 156, 264 
Henry, William, inventor, 69 

78; courtship, 69-71 
Henry, Mrs. Wm., Treas. of 

Lancaster, 70 
Hensel, Hon. W. U., 18, cited, 

51, 99 
Hiltzheimer, Jacob, 48, cited, 

308, 309 
Himes, Charles F., 164 
Hollenbach, Matthias, 277 
HoUidaysburg, 241, 247 
Homet, Chas., 295 
Homewood Mansion, 197, 198 
Honey Brook, 39 
Howe, Gen. William, 26, 329 
Huntingdon, name of, 194 
Huntingdon, Serena, Coun- 
tess, 194, 195 
Huston, Dr. Charles, 37 
Huston, Mrs. Charles, recol- 
lections of, 38 



Irvine, Gen. Wm., 150, 151, 
249 

J 
Jacobs, Cyrus, 42 
Jacobs, Samuel, 175 



Jefferson, Thomas, 23, 178, 
179; subscribers to Dickin- 
son College, 162 
Jenkins, John, 40, 41 
Jenkins, Hon. Robt., 41 
Jennings, Edmund, 47 
Jessup, Wm., 291 
Joanna Furnace, 309 
Johnson, James, 286 
Johnson, Sir Wm., 297 
Johnston, Alex., Jr., 199 
Johnston, Henry E., 65, 100 
Johnston, Mrs. Henry E., 65, 

100 
Johnston, Robert, M.D., 135 

K 

Kates, Clarence S., 33 
Kittera, Mr. and Mrs. J. W., 

77 
Kline, George, 54 
Kossuth, Gen., in Penna., 242, 

243-245 
Kiihns, Oscar, 98 



Lacock, John K., cited, 225, 
229 

Lafayette, Marquis de, in 
Bethlehem, 322; in Lancas- 
ter, 43; in Western Penna., 
198; entertained in Pitts- 
burgh, 199-202 

Lake, Simon, 78 

Lamon, Ward H., 183, 184 

Lancaster, plan of, 44; In- 
dian Chiefs met in, 45-47; 
Continental Congress in, 50 ; 
Capital of Penna., 50; 
President Lincoln in, 71- 
73 



347 



INDEX 



Landis, Judge C. I., 43, 53 

Landis, J. H., 98 

Lan« Harriet, see Mrs. H. E. 

Johnston. 
Lapidea Mansion, 333-335 
La Porte, Bartholomew, 294 
La Porte, Judge, 295 



Luzerne, Caesar, Anne de la, 

278 
Lyons, Jerre L., 292 
Lyons, John P., 5 
Lyons, Lorenzo, 292 

M 



Lardner, Lynford, 41, 317, Maclay, Senator Wm., 177- 



318 

Lebanon, 89, 93 

Lee, Gen. Henry, 27, 28 

Lee, Gen. Robert E., 116, 117 

Lee, Col. Thos., 47 

Leiper, C. I., 334 

Leiper, Thomas, 333, 334 

Levering, Bishop, J. M., cited, 
321, 322 

Libraries, first in Penna., 61 

Lincoln, Abraham, in Lan- 
caster, 71, 73; in Harris- 
burg, 73, 180-184; journey 
to Washington, 183, 184; 
at Gettysburg, 117, 118 

Lincoln, Mrs. A., 181, 185, 
187 

Lind, Jenny, singer, 245, 246 

Linn, John B., 18, 251 

Linn, Rev, James, 250 

Lititz, 69, 80, 85-89 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, cited, 
190, 227 

Logan, Deborah, 105 

Logan, James, 105, 106, 196 

Logan, John, Indian, 195, 196 

Longacre, Mrs. J. M., cited, 
90 

Longstreth, John, 330 

Lovell, D. H., 241 

Ludlow, Israel, 127 

Lukens, Dr. and Mrs. Charles, 
37 



178, 180 
Madison, Dolly, 279 
Manheim, 89-92 
Mann, Mrs. Jane, 255, 256 
Marshall, Chief Justice, 233 
Marietta, 191 
Marshall, Christopher, 48, 50, 

54 
Mason, John, 262, 263 
Matlock, Timothy, 50 
McClintock, John, D.D., 163 
McClure, Col. A. K., cited, 

128, 180, 182, 243 
McCormick, Searight, 223 
McFarland, Judge, 243 
McKinley, David, 96 
McKinley, Wm., Pres., 96 
McLanahan, J. K., 242 
McClellan, John, M.D., 134 
McClellan, Hon. Robert, 134 
McLelland, Wm., 125, 134 
McLelland, Mrs. Wm., story 

of, 125 
McParlan, Jas., 305, 306 
McPherson, John, 22 
McVeagh, Mrs. Wayne, 187 
Meade, Gen. Geo. G., 117 
Meginness, J. F., 273-275 
Meredith, Gen. Samuel, First 

Treae. of U. S., 288, 289 
Meredith, Wm. M., 99 
Michael, Eberhardt, 53 
Miflain, Gen. Thomas, 58, 309 



348 



INDEX 



Mifflin, Lloyd, cited, 102 
Miller, Gen. Henry, 150 
Mollie Pitcher, 151-154 
Montgomery, Col. John, 161 
Montgomery, Rich. Gen., 51 
Montgomery, Dr. T. L., 5 
Montour, Mme., 297 
Montrose, named after Rose 

family, 283; 284, 289-293 
Moore, Johnston, Esq., 159 
Morgan, Col. Robert, 150 
Morgan, Gen. George, 198, 234 
Morganza, 198 
Morris, Robert, 16, 173, 177 
Moskesson, 287 
Muhlenburg, Rev. Wm. A., 65, 

66 
Mulford, Rev. Elisha, 291 
Mulford, Mr. and Mrs. Syl- 

vanus, 291, 292 

N 

Nesbit, James, 278 

Nevin, Alfred, D.D., cited, 

122, 123, 145, 146 
Nevin, Blanche, 41 
Nevin, Mrs. John, 41 
Newlin, Nathaniel, Member 

of Assembly, 341 
Nicklin, Philip, 263 
Nisbet, Charles, D.D., 155, 

160, 161 
Norris, Isaac, 147 
North, Hugh M., 99 



Oakley, Violet, 176 
O'Hara, Gen. Jas., 199, 208, 
Orme, Robert, cited, 225, 226 
Ormsby, Captain John, diary 
of, 204-207 



Page, Benjamin, house of, 

199, 200 
Page, Martha H., 200 
Page, Oliver Ormsby, cited, 

199-202 
Paoli, Paschal, 30 
Parker, Alexander, 198 
Parker, Emmeline K., 5, 165 
Parker House, 143, 158, 159 
Parker, Isaac B., 158, 159, 

165, 166 
Parker, John B., 158 
Parkman, Francis, 225 
Patton, Benj., 249 
Paxton, boys, 55 
Paxton, James D., 119 
Pearsons, The, 170, 189 
Pemberton, Mrs. Henry, Sr., 

181, 187 
Penn, Gov. John, 23, 83, 232 
Penn, Richard, 90, 232 
Penn, Thomas, 61, 90, 232 
Penn, William, 15, 41, 44; 

lands at Upland, 336-339 
Pendergrass, Garrett, 230 
Pennock, Isaac, 37 
Penrose, Mrs. Chas. B., 166 
Perkins, Mrs. Geo. A., cited, 

272, 295-297 
Pershing, Gen. John, ances- 
try, 96 
Pershing, Judge, 306 
Phelps, Mrs, J. C, 273 
Phipps, Henry, 210 
Phoenixville, 330 
Pickering^imothy, 277, 278 
Pinkerton, Alan, 305 
Piolett, J. M., 295 



349 



INDEX 



Pittsburgh, 20-23 

Pleasant Mount, 288 

Pleasant, Henry, Jr., 27 

Pomeroy, Nevin Mrs., 125 

Potter, James, 250 

Potts, Isaac, house of, 331 

Pottstown, 329 

Pottsville, coal discovered in 

300-306 
Prolix, Peregrine, (Philip 

Nicklin), cited, 20, 191, 

192, 239 
Pusey, Caleb, house of 1683, 

339 

Q 

Quarryville, 69, 74, 75 
Queen Esther, 267, 272-277 
284-298 



Rau, Albert G., 327 

Ray, Robert, 230 

Raystown, see Bedford 

Reading, 307-310; Lincoln 
homestead near, 310 

Reeves, David, Sr., 329 

Reigart, E. C, of Lancaster, 
57 

Riddle, John S., 200 

Rinker, Abraham, 315 

Ritner, Governor, 68 

Rittenhouse, David, astrono- 
mer, 17, 59, 70 

Roberts, Chas. R., cited, 314, 
315 

Robinson, Gen. Wm.. 198, 199 

Robinson, Mrs. M. W., cit«d, 
90 

Rockview, prison arm, 256- 
259 



Rocky Spring Church, 130- 

132 
Roosevelt, Theodore, in Lan- 
caster, 71 
Rose, Mrs. William, 142 
Ross, Gen. Wm., 278 
Ross, George, Signer, 62 
Ross, James, Jr., 199 
Rothrock, Dr. J. S., 120 
Rupp, 1, Daniel, cited, 84 
Rush, Benj., M.D., 160-161 



Sabbath Rest Furnace, 195 
Sachse, Julius F., 32 
Schell, Hon. Wm. P., 230 
Schwab, Chas. W., 327 
Schwab, Peter, 314 
Schenley, Mrs. Mary E., 208, 

210 
Schomberg, Emily (Mrs. 

Hughes Hallitt), 23, 24 
Scott, Col. Thos. A., 183, 185, 

209 
Scranton, 283, 284 
Scull, Nicholas, in Carlisle, 

147 
Searight,Ewing, 223, 224 
Searight, Thos. B., 224 
Searight, William, 223 
Seward, Wm. H., 186, 188 
Sherman, John, Senator, 190 
Shikellamy, Chief, 195, 260 
Shippen, Edward, 1st, 136 
Shippen, Edw., of Lancaster, 
house of, 54, 56, 133; 
lays out Shippensburg, 
138, 140 
Shippen, Joseph, 56, 57 
Shippensburg, 138, 142 
Shoemaker, Col. Geo., 304 



aso 



INDEX 



Shoemaker, H. W., 5, cited, 

195, 196 
Slaymaker, 63 
Slocum, Frances, capture of, 

273-275 
Slocum, J., 273, 275 
Slough, Mathias, 53, 55 
Smith, James, signer, 112 
Smith, Col. L. Heber, 309, 310 
Snyder, Gov. Simon, 67, 265 
Snyder, Plymouth, 242, 243 
Spencer, Howard, Esq., 288 
Sproul, Gov. Wm. C, owns 

Lapidea, 334, 335; restores 

Court-House, 340 
Steinman, Andrew J., 88 
Steinman, Christian A., 88 
Steinman, George M., 88 
Stephenson, James, 96 
Stevens, Thaddeus, 60, 68, 119 
St. James Church, Lancaster, 

59, 62-65 
Stewart, Alex., M.D., settler, 

140 
Stewart, Alex., M.D., 140 

141 
Stewart, George H., 141 
Stewart, Harriet W., cited, 

140 
Stewart, Hon. John, 5, 141 
Stiegel, Baron, 89-92 
Stockton, Rev. Joseph, 200, 

204 
Stout, Dr. and Mrs. Geo. C, 

28 
Sullivan, Gen., 276 
Sumner, Col. E. V., 181, 185 
Sunbury, 260, 267 
Swift, Joseph, owns Fulton 

House, 75, 76 



Tener, John, Gov., 257 
Thomas, Gov. Geo., 45-75 
Thompson, Gen. Wm., 150, 151 
Thomson, Alexander, 128 
Thomson, Frank, 128 
Thomson, Wm., M.D., 127 
Tilghman, Chief Justice, 199, 

263 
Torrance, Francis J., 256 
Townsend, John W., 26 
Trevelyan, Sir George, 144 
Trexler, Gen. H. C, 5, 312, 

317 
Trexler, Hon. Frank M., 312 
Trexler, Hon. Peter, 48, 312 
Trexler, Peter, settler, 312 
Trial of Mollie Maguires, 306 
Tripp, Isaac, 273 
Trout Hall, 313, 316 

U 

Uniontown, 222-225 



Valentine, houses, 254 
Valentine, Reuben Bond, 254 
Valley Forge, Mrs. Washing- 
ton at, 330-332 
window in honor of, 330 
Veazey, Maria Ross, 158 
Vernon, Admiral, 32 
Vernon, Robert, 33 

w 

Wade, Robert, 336 
Waldo, F. L., cited, 328 
Walker, Judge, 306 
Wallace Mansion, 197, 198 
Walters, Raymond, cited, 327 



331 



INDEX 



Warfield, Daniel J., 238 
Warren, Gen. Joseph, 32 
Washington, Gen., 23, 25, 26; 

in Bedford, 139, 233-236 

in Bethlehem, 328; in Ship- 

pensburg, 139, 140; in 

Western Penna., 218, 224, 

with Braddock, 225-228 ; 

at Valley Forge, 27, 331, 

332 
Wasliington, Mrs. Geo. in 

Phila., 126, 127; at Valley 

Forge, 330, 332 
Washington, Penna., 212-217 
Washington, Reade, M., 128 
Watts, Mrs. and Mrs. David, 

166 
Wattp, house, 156, 157 
Watts, Juliana, 167 
Watts, William, 142 
Wayne, Gen. Anthony, house 

of, 29; at Paoli, 32; death, 

29-32 
Wayne, Isaac, 29 
Wayne, Gen. William, 29 
Wetherill, Samuel, 304 
Wharton, Thos., Gov., 49-50, 

58, 59, 263 
Wheatland, 13, 73 
Whiskey Insurrection, 233 
Wicker sham, J. P., 18 
Wilbur, W. A., 327 



Wilkes-Barrg, 12, 20, 260-282 
Wilkins, Hon. William, 197- 

199, 264 
Williams, Margaret, recollec- 
tions of Pres. Lincoln, 180- 

188 
Williams, Hon. Thos., 180, 

186 
Wilson College, 128 
Wilson, H«nry R, Rev., 250 
Wilson, James, Signer, 155 
Wilson, Major, W. B., 180 
Wilson, Sarah, college named 

for, 128, 129 
Wister, Caspar, 312 
Witmer, David, 43 
Woerner, Wm. F., cited, 63, 

65, 66 
Wolle, Dr. J. F., 327 
Woods, John, 197 
Woodward, Mrs. Stanley, 277 
Wright, John, 104, 108 
Wright, Susannah, 105, 108 
Wright, William, 108 
Wrights' Ferry, 104, 108, 110, 

111 
Wurtz, John, 284 



Zinzendorf, Count Nicholas 
L., in Lancaster Co., 86, 87 ; 
in Bethlehem, 323, 327 



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